Tyquan King believes Temple has a real chance in the second half of the season to show it’s a much better football team than its record would indicate.
Saturday was a step in the right direction.
It wasn’t a work of art by any means, but Temple’s 20-10 homecoming win over Tulsa Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field moved the Owls to 2-5 overall, 1-3 in the American Athletic Conference and kept the program’s bowl-eligibility hopes alive.
“I could honestly tell you our record does not define us,” said King, who posted a game-high nine tackles as he continues to emerge as arguably the team’s best linebacker and most valuable transfer portal addition. “You can tell by our play. It’s the back end of the season. It’s just like the beginning. We’ve got to go 1-0 every week from here on out. That’s our objective."
The good news?
Quarterback Evan Simon returned from his sternoclavicular (SC) joint injury in his throwing shoulder and completed 30 of his 46 passes for 297 yards, a touchdown and a harmless interception at the end of the first half. On a day when he was without his and the conference’s best receiver in Dante Wright due to an injury, Simon connected with 13 different receivers. His second-quarter touchdown pass to Peter Clarke, a play that saw him weather some pressure and drop the throw to the back of the end zone to his 6-foot-6, 270-pound freshman tight end, showed his athleticism and touch hadn’t missed a beat.
More on the good news front? Tight end Landon Morris, who came to the program with some promise after starting at Syracuse, transferring to Utah and then sitting out last season as a double transfer, finally broke out Saturday to the tune of four catches for 97 yards, including a 58-yard reception in the first quarter that helped set up Maddux Trujillo’s 29-yard field goal.
On the other side of the ball, defensive end Diwun Black was again a difference-maker with two sacks, three tackles for a loss, a quarterback pressure and a forced fumble. His defensive end counterpart Tra Thomas added a sack, and cornerback Jamel Johnson came up with an interception, something a team that’s tied for dead last in the nation in turnover margin will certainly take.
The not so good news?
After scoring on three of its first four drives, Temple’s offense scored on just one of its last seven drives, with the eighth one coming to an end as Simon took a knee to let the final seconds tick off the clock.
“They brought pressure a lot,” said Simon, who was pressured four times but managed to avoid a sack on a day when his left tackle Kevin Terry left the game with what third-year head coach Stan Drayton called a recurring injury. “I don't think it's anything that they did that kind of slowed us up. I think it was ourselves. We had a couple penalties, but that's football, and our defense bowed up in the fourth quarter, and it helped us out a lot.”
Yes, the defense bowed up. King, Black and Thomas bailed out the secondary, even though Tulsa quarterback Kirk Francis’ pedestrian numbers (11 of 23 passing for 153 yards and a 63-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Watkins) wouldn’t necessarily indicate a rough day through the air. Temple’s defense was hit with seven penalties for 85 yards, and six of them were split among cornerbacks Torey Richardson and Ben Osueke for holding or pass interference.
Temple’s defense had been gashed against the run, especially in games with now-ranked opponents like Navy and Army. But after holding UConn, then the nation’s 11th-best rushing team, under 100 yards two weeks ago, the Owls limited Tulsa (2-5 overall, 0-3 American) to a pedestrian 75 yards and 2.4 yards per carry. Black set the tone for the day when he drilled quarterback Cooper Legas, who started the game for Tulsa as more of a running threat for the Golden Hurricane, on a fourth-and-1 play that came up short at the Temple 43 on the game’s opening series.
“(Defensive coordinator) Everett Withers is doing a great job of calling plays that are designed to stop the run,” Drayton said, “and our linebackers are well coached by (linebackers coach) Chris Woods, and they're fitting gaps when things are not quite going well up front. And when there's misfits up front, those ‘backers are making it right, and we're tackling. We’re doing a much better job of tackling. And it's not just linebackers and D-linemen. Our secondary comes up and tackles the ball, and I think that’s something that I think that's been pretty consistent over the last couple of games, and we need to continue to enhance that piece of it.”
Simon, who is now 2-2 as a starter while completing nearly 65% of his passes for 977 yards, 10 touchdowns and three interceptions, sustained the SC joint injury in the Sept. 26 loss to Army and missed the Oct. 5 loss at UConn because of it. Drayton said Monday that Simon was “good to go” but needed to prove he could throw the ball again after an almost three-week layoff if he was going to start Saturday.
It sounded like all of that happened just in time.
“So, it was a weird week,” said Simon, who also gained 23 yards on five designed runs. “Tuesday, I wasn't really throwing. I was a little bit, but limited. Wednesday, a little more. And then got to rest Thursday, and really dialed in on Friday, and we had a really good practice Friday. I felt really good and confident and we're good to go Saturday.”
The injury front
Safety Javier Morton, defensive lineman Demerick Morris and offensive tackle Melvin Siani all returned Saturday. Siani’s return was particularly important, as he came in to play right tackle when Diego Barajas moved from that position over to left tackle when Terry left with his injury.
As for Wright, who spent the game in street clothes on the bench, Drayton said he didn’t yet know about his injury but said it was a different ailment than the one he was dealing with previously.
“I don't know the severity of his of his injury,” Drayton said of Wright, who is tied for the American Athletic Conference lead in receptions with 42 and leads the league in receiving yards with 517. “I know he's a tough kid, and he's excited to get back, is what he told me just now. But we'll assess it, and we'll do what's right for him.”
The Owls were also thin at running back due to injuries to E.J. Wilson and Tyrei Washington that Drayton described as “day to day.”
Tailback Terrez Worthy eventually picked things up a bit after a slow start and gained 41 yards on 12 carries and scored from a yard out in the second quarter to push Temple out to a 17-0 lead. Joquez Smith got the bulk of some of the early carries and also caught two passes for 23 yards. Antwain Littleton did not log his first carry until the second half.
Listen to and watch Saturday's postgame media sessions here.
