Temple’s offensive line is going through a change in leadership this spring.
Former center and right tackle Adam Klein and former left tackle Isaac Moore, two single digits and vocal leaders, are both moving on to graduation and will be participating in the Owls’ Pro Day Wednesday.
With two notable absences on the line, offensive line coach Chris Weisehan has prompted his team to step up in the void left by the graduates.
“It’s the next man up,” Wiesehan told reporters Saturday. “That’s why you train. We have some guys that aren’t practicing this spring, and that gives me an opportunity to get eyes on other kids, move them around, and have them get their opportunities.”
Though the loss of Klein and Moore are tough, the 2023 offensive line group has focused on spending the spring finding new leadership in the locker room and working on versatility and communication.
That shouldn’t be anything new to a group that never had the luxury of starting the same lineup in consecutive weeks due to multiple injuries to players like Klein, Richard Rodriguez, Victor Stoffel and James Faminu.
Redshirt junior Wisdom Quarshie does not take that task lightly. Entering his fifth season at Temple, Quarshie values his role as an older member of the team and wants to pass along the values he learned to other players.
“It’s a chance to bring guys together,” Quarshie said. “It’s a chance to teach them to be Temple tough and the traditions of Temple. So far, I’m enjoying it.”
Quarshie singled out Rodriguez, a redshirt junior, as another strong leader on the offensive line. Rodriguez, too, mentioned the importance of passing down values, especially those he learned from Klein and Moore over the years.
“Isaac and Adam gave us a good blueprint of what leading is supposed to look like,” Rodriguez, who missed four games due to injury last season, said. “You need to hold people accountable and make sure you get the best out of your teammates every day. We make mistakes, but it’s a process that we are all working on together.”
Now, the offensive line is trying to turn that leadership into success on the field.
Last season, Temple’s offensive line struggled to have any consistency, battling the aforementioned injuries and lineup shuffles every week. Despite this, the line had success in the passing game and ranked sixth in the nation in sacks allowed, giving up 10 the entire season, and 45th in tackles for loss allowed with 47.
However, the Owls had the nation’s third-worst rushing offense with just 989 yards on 318 carries, and the line knows it bears some responsibility for those numbers.
This spring, Wiesehan is focusing on training his lineman to play - and be ready to play - multiple positions as he always does. Quarshie said that means linemen are subbing in and out at different positions throughout the line, and Rodriguez added that spring practice allows everyone to get reps in positions outside their comfort zone.
“That’s how [Wiesehan] coaches,” said Rodriguez, who opened the season as the starting center at Duke and made eight starts at both center and left guard. “He doesn’t go by positions. He coaches as if we were five fingers and we add up to one glove.”
Another area Temple’s offensive line wants to improve is its ability to communicate with each other and the rest of the offense. Wiesehan said Temple’s communication last season, while good, was not perfect, and that has been a point of emphasis. His goal is to make it easier for the offense, especially rising sophomore quarterback E.J. Warner, to adjust to the defense on the fly.
“Our level of communication has risen, even just this spring,” Wiesehan said. “We have guys with a lot more awareness. They’re able to empower [Warner] to empower him to redirect protections at a high level through our communication of what we’re seeing.”
If the spring season so far is any indication, Rodriguez believes this unit can see the results they want in the fall.
“Having more leaders step us has helped us bring everyone along more than last year,” he said. “But it’s a great experience. We’re all learning from each other, and I think we are trending in the right direction.”
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