Four years ago, Stan Drayton and Tom Herman were coworkers in one of college football’s best conferences. While Herman was leading the Texas program as the Longhorns’ head coach, Drayton was his running backs coach.
Saturday afternoon at Lincoln Financial Field, before a crowd much smaller than what they were used to in Austin, Drayton and Herman met again as head coaches four years later, watching over two of the worst programs in America.
And for much of regulation, Drayton’s Temple Owls and Herman’s Florida Atlantic Owls looked the part. In the first half, there were 324 yards in total offense and 314 yards in punts.
It took overtime to determine the outcome of an evening of mostly futile football, but Drayton’s Owls outlasted Herman’s Owls when Temple placekicker Maddux Trujillo drilled a 39-yard field goal to deliver an 18-15 win, Temple’s third of the season.
Trujillo's biggest kick of the day was one of four makes on the day, as he hit from 54, 50 and 47 yards earlier in the game.
The Owls went 3-9 in Drayton’s first two seasons as Temple’s head coach, and bowl eligibility is out of reach once again this season. But with two games remaining - at UTSA next Friday and against North Texas at home in the regular-season finale - the Owls still have some pride and improvement to play for.
“I love Tom,” Drayton said of coaching against his former boss and close friend. “This game wasn’t about Tom. This game was about us. We needed this victory. Temple Football needed this victory. Our kids worked hard for it. It feels good to beat FAU. But to make it personal, I would be lying to you. It was only personal for us, Temple Football.”
FAU (2-8) came into Saturday’s game as the lone program in the league that had yet to win an American Athletic Conference game – and with a new interim defensive coordinator and offensive line coach after Herman decided to shake up his staff Monday.
And yet, those Owls nearly knocked off Drayton’s Owls, and with their third-string quarterback, no less. FAU was already playing with its second stringer in Kasen Weisman, but Tyriq Starks had to relieve him in the third quarter when Weisman hobbled off the field after Temple outside linebacker Diwun Black was blocked into the back of his leg.
“Yeah, we knew [Starks], we knew they were going to rely heavily on the run,” Drayton said. “We knew that [Starks] was still going to be capable of throwing some RPOs and throwing the ball down the field. So we were anticipating a heavy dose of runs.”
But after Temple’s offense finally woke up a bit in the fourth quarter and pulled ahead with the help of a Terrez Worthy 1-yard touchdown run and a Trujillo 47-yard field goal, Starks led an 11-play, 75-yard drive in the span of just 1 minute, 18 seconds that culminated in a C.J. Campbell Jr. 1-yard touchdown run. Then FAU pulled off a Philly Special-esque play to get the two-point conversion when Omari Hayes threw the ball to a wide-open Starks in the end zone.
All of that tied the game at 15-15 with 34 seconds left and forced overtime.
“‘Just stay the course,’” Drayton said to his defense after allowing the game-tying touchdown. “This is nothing that we hadn’t been through before. It’s this thing called adversity that we know very well. To panic, to try to do something outside the call, or a little bit more than what the call asks you to do will put us in an even tougher situation.”
Temple’s defense had on-and-off pressure throughout the regulation but had yet to get home with a sack. That was until in overtime, when the Owls got back-to-back sacks from inside linebacker Tyquan King and Black, forcing what would have been a 29-yard field goal into a 40-yarder.
FAU kicker Morgan Suarez missed the 40-yard field try, setting up Trujillo’s game-winner and record-breaking sixth field goal attempt.
“It felt great,” King said of the sacks that set up the eventual missed FAU field goal. “Their quarterback took a lot of hits. It’s great that he got one with the ball in his hands finally.”
Temple got back its leading receiver, Dante Wright, after he missed the last two games with an undisclosed injury. With Wright out, the team seemed stagnant and struggled to get the passing game going.
The offense still looked that way through three-plus quarters, but Wright was one of the very few offensive bright spots, finishing with 147 receiving yards on 14 receptions. Temple’s next closest receiver was Ashton Allen with 20 yards on two receptions.
Wright’s 14 receptions were the second most for a Temple wideout in a single game, just behind Clint Graves' 15 catches against Rhode Island back in 1972.
“It felt great just being back on the field,” Wright said. “Definitely rebuilt my confidence. Missing a couple of weeks, you’re kind of unsure how it’s going to go, but this game was really good for my confidence, and we were able to win.”
Once Trujillo’s game-winning field goal split the uprights, Drayton raised his arms before his quarterback, Evan Simon, hugged him and lifted him off the ground.
In his postgame press conference, Drayton mentioned that the players had heard some of the things people were saying on campus and in the media.
“When you’re going through some adversity, your locker room gets challenged, the football program gets challenged, there’s a lot of truth that comes out of that,” Drayton said. “People start to expose themselves. You can hear things, and you can choose to pay attention to all that. I’m just so proud of these guys for staying focused on each other.
“They walk on campus after losses and it's not fun for them sometimes. They hear the [expletive] that the media will say and things of that sort. We hear the negativity. Hearing it, paying attention to it and embracing it is one thing. We hear it, but we don’t embrace it. I know what they go through. I know what they want as a program of themselves. They want to be successful, and when they’re not it gets tough. It’s just the nature of the beast.”
Temple’s last two opponents, UTSA and North Texas, played each Friday, with the Roadrunners winning in a 48-27 route. A win for the Owls down in San Antonio would be the program’s first during Drayton’s tenure.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be televised on ESPN2.
Watch Saturday's postgame press conferences here.
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