ANNAPOLIS, Maryland – When Navy head coach Brian Newberry scouted Temple on film ahead of Saturday’s American Athletic Conference opener, he believed the Owls “fit right in” athletically against No. 16 Oklahoma last week, even in a 48-point loss.
That seemed to be the vibe coming out of Week 1. The Owls had more than a few moments when it looked like they belonged on the same field as an SEC team, especially on defense.
But with a chance to respond Saturday against the Midshipmen, the Owls didn’t look like they fit in at all.
Temple surrendered a first-quarter safety, allowed Navy quarterback Blake Horvath to carve them up for 122 rushing yards and four total touchdowns, and committed eight offensive penalties en route to a 38-11 loss at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium that sent them to 0-2 overall and off to a concerning start in conference play.
The Owls’ lone touchdown, a 23-yard toss on a nicely-thrown ball from quarterback Forrest Brock and an athletic catch from wide receiver Dante Wright, came with 10 minutes left to play and Temple already trailing by five touchdowns.
Brock, who said after the game that he was OK after taking a hit to the helmet late in the fourth quarter, finished 30 of 46 passing for 277 yards, the touchdown toss to Wright, and two interceptions. The first one, a bad read in the second quarter, was his fault. The second, a fourth-quarter throw to running back Joquez Smith where Smith just didn’t look for the ball, was not.
Temple’s running game was once again nonexistent, with the Owls scratching out just 35 yards on 20 carries.
Temple’s defense surrendered a 62-yard rushing touchdown to Horvath and a 60-yard scoring run to fullback Alex Tecza on consecutive second-quarter drives – and on the first play of those drives. Maddux Trujillo’s 36-yard field goal just before halftime temporarily stopped the bleeding, but there didn’t seem to be a feeling at that point that the Owls had another counterpunch.
A 31-yard touchdown pass from Horvath to Eli Heidenreich and an 18-yard touchdown run from Horvath a little more than eight minutes later in the third quarter made that quite clear.
Is this stuff fixable?
At times during his postgame remarks, third-year head coach Stan Drayton tried to project some confidence. At one point near the end of his brief, six-minute postgame presser, he said he wasn’t “giving up” on his football team.
But when he was first asked if the team could have found some life at halftime by looking to shrug off those two big plays, Drayton said it was about more than that.
He started by giving Navy (2-0) credit. Then he got into some stuff that didn’t sound so great.
“I thought they were more physical than we were out here today,” Drayton admitted. “(They have a) new offense in place (a hybrid Wing-T) that they did a phenomenal job executing right off the bat, so I just want to give Navy the credit. I thought they really came out there and had a really good game for us.
“For us, I just think we need to really continue to figure out some things in terms of who are the right bodies in the ball game doing the right stuff at the office all the time, who's the most consistent football players that we could put on the football field that have the right intention and the right mindset. We’ve got to figure that out. I don't like the look in some of the guys’ eyes on the football field, so we're going to figure out who needs to be playing for Temple that's going to represent Temple the right way. We'll figure it out.”
Drayton was then asked what he meant by the “look in some of the guys’ eyes” remark.
“There’s something that’s called Temple Tuff,” Drayton responded, referring to the program’s longstanding slogan that was first championed by Temple’s late Hall of Fame basketball coach John Chaney and then adopted by the football program when former head coach Al Golden started to turn the program around. “When adversity hits, you get stronger. Adversity hit early, and I didn’t like the look in some of the guys’ eyes, that’s all.”
Adversity first hit when Temple found itself deep in its own territory following a two-yard loss on an Antwain Littleton run and a personal foul flag on right guard Wisdom Quarshie on the same play that pushed the Owls back to their 4-yard line. Two plays later, Grayson Mains’ snap was a little low and to the left, but nothing Brock said he couldn’t handle. The ball got past him and he was pushed out of the back of the end zone for a safety that opened the scoring at 2-0 with 5:44 left in the first quarter.
“It was a little hot and low,” Brock said, “but I feel like it was catchable, watching it back.”
Navy then reeled off 21 unanswered points from there, and the rout was on.
Two of Temple’s single-digit defenders, defensive tackle Latrell Jean and safety Andreas Keaton, were made available after the game. If you ask them, much of what happened Saturday was self-inflicted.
They gave up scoring plays of 62, 65 and 31 yards, surrendered 409 yards of total offense and refused to blame it on the nuanced differences between Navy’s old triple-option offense and their new hybrid Wing-T.
More than anything, they had problems tracking Horvath all day, and it was a huge issue.
“It was a lot of moving parts,” said Jean, who had three tackles. “It comes down to discipline. It comes down to our eyes. … We’ve got to be more disciplined at our assignments. We’ve got to handle our assignments a lot better than we did today.”
“It wasn’t nothing new that we saw,” said Keaton. “We shot ourselves in the foot, like (Jean) said.”
Temple now has a week to prepare for next Saturday’s home opener against Coastal Carolina.
“These are all learning experiences that we'll grow through,” said Drayton, who has yet to win a road game as Temple’s head coach two games into his third season. “As I told the team, we're going through a real process here. I am not giving up on this football team. I believe that we have the right stuff in place, and we just need to put it to execution. And that's going to be on the coaches, that's going to be on the players, and we'll grow with the season."
The Owls had a chance Saturday to prove they had grown from the first game to the next.
Their response Saturday left a lot to be desired.
Postgame audio
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