Missed connections: Warner, Owls' receivers off in loss to Tulsa

While E.J. Warner has provided some reasons for optimism with flashes of promising play through the first six games of his career, Temple’s true freshman quarterback has also endured his share of mistakes and bumps in the road as things have gone wrong around him in the Owls’ 2-4 season.

That was evident once again Friday night in Temple’s 27-16 loss to Tulsa at Lincoln Financial Field.

The 6-foot, 190-pound Brophy College Prep product and Arizona native went 23 of 48 passing for 196 yards and one touchdown pass, along with an interception that came on the final play of the game.

Warner took over the starting job in the second week of the season when he entered the game in the second quarter and passed for 173 yards and two touchdowns in the Owls’ 30-14 win over FCS program Lafayette. It was the shot in the arm Temple needed at the time.

The Owls have gone 1-4 since and 0-3 to start American Athletic Conference play, and Warner has thrown for 1,236 yards, seven touchdowns and seven interceptions. Those seven picks tie Warner with Tulsa starter Davis Brin, who threw two Friday night, for the most in the conference, and his 54.2 completion percentage is the worst among the 10 starting quarterbacks in the league who have attempted more than 100 passes this season.

There are of course numerous reasons for Warner’s inconsistent play, including the fact that he’s a true freshman who won’t turn 19 until next month and would otherwise be redshirting this season had returning starter D’Wan Mathis made the progression first-year head coach Stan Drayton and his staff were hoping for.

He also hasn’t been helped by a stagnant rushing attack that was ranked 128th out of 131 FBS teams entering Friday night’s game and an oft-injured offensive line that has not started the same five players in consecutive games this season.

“Anytime you have injuries, it's hard to kind of plug different guys in and try to get a chemistry that way,” Warner said. “But my job is just to focus on what I can control, and if I can control in the pass game, watching film, do whatever I need to do to control that and just stand back there and trust those guys, no matter who it is in front of me.”

Friday night, it was Isaac Moore at left tackle (the only player on the line to have started all seven games at the same position), Richard Rodriguez at left guard, Adam Klein at center, James Faminu at right guard and Victor Stoffel at right tackle. Klein left the game in the third quarter with an injury, and Faminu later did as well, prompting Drayton and offensive line coach Chris Wiesehan to move Rodriguez to center (where he started the season at Duke) and bring in Wisdom Quarshie to spell Faminu.

In the first half, Temple tried to establish the run against the nation’s 128th-ranked rushing defense and had some moderate success with 17 attempts for 73 yards. Edward Saydee had 59 of those yards on 12 carries and was at the very least giving Tulsa something to think about other than Warner’s arm.

But Warner was just 7 of 17 passing for 31 yards in the first half. Although Temple’s offensive line once again did not allow a sack, Warner still weathered a fair amount of pressure from a Tulsa defense that ranks dead last in the American with seven sacks.

“We just had the run game going early in the first half, and we just kind of rolled with that,” Warner said. “Kept giving [Saydee] the ball, kept getting yards that way, and we just let the pass game come to us. Later in the game, we started passing more, but we just didn’t execute as well in the passing game as we should have in the first half and tried to rely more on the run.”

Wide receiver Adonicas Sanders, who’s second on the team with 29 catches for 352 yards, started the game but came out for the second half in sweatpants due to an injury, and that also played a role in Warner’s struggles. Warner targeted Jose Barbon 13 times but only connected with him six times for 56 yards.

With Sanders out, Zae Baines saw increased playing time, but Warner and the redshirt freshman failed to connect on 10 targets. Amad Anderson wound up with eight catches for 112 yards and a 23-yard touchdown reception that made it a 24-16 game with 6:08 left to play, but it was clear that Warner and his receivers were out of synch for most of the night.

“Anytime there's new guys, you have to kind of get used to it,” Warner said. “But we’ve been putting in work in practice and we’ve been putting in the work in camp all summer, so there’s not an excuse of no chemistry or anything like that. We should still go out there and produce and make the plays that we need to.”

Warner’s next test is a road game next Saturday at Navy, a team that will look to control the time-of-possession battle as it traditionally does. The Midshipmen are fourth nationally in that category entering Saturday’s game against Houston, so Warner and Temple’s offense will have to make their possessions count on the road.