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Published Aug 15, 2024
Owls looking at a wide range of receivers
Colin Schofield
OwlScoop.com Staff Reporter

Temple hired Grambling State wide receivers coach Tyron Carrier during the offseason to lead its wide receiver room.

Carrier was a standout receiver and returner himself during his playing days at Houston and ended his collegiate career with the FBS record in kick return touchdowns with seven and finished second in FBS history at the time in receptions at 320.

If the Owls wind up with a player or two of Carrier’s caliber, head coach Stan Drayton would certainly take it.

For now, Carrier will be tasked with leading a room that lost its leading receiver from 2023 in Amad Anderson Jr. but returns some experience and added some intriguing new pieces.

Dante Wright, Zae Baines, John Adams and Ian Stewart all return as key contributors from a season ago. Wright, Adams and Baines were the next three behind Anderson last season in terms of receiving yards by the wide receivers with 507, 442 and 149 yards, respectively. Stewart earned a single digit last season but must prove this year that he can stay healthy after an injury limited him to just six catches for 48 yards in six games.

Despite his modest career numbers (14 catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns), Stewart’s leadership has been critical so far for the new wide receivers in the locker room, Carrier said.

“He’s the next coach in the room,” Carrier said. “When I am in meetings and younger guys want to know certain things, he takes them with him into the meeting room and gets them up to speed. He does a great job of relaying the message I put out there. It’s valuable when you have that kind of leadership in the room.”

One of the new guys in the room looking to get up to speed is transfer Ashton Allen, a former track all-American at USC who hasn’t played football since his days at Maryland’s Bullis School.

“He kind of looks like Bambi, a baby deer out there at times,” Carrier said of Allen, who ran with USC’s 2022 National Champion 4x100 team and was also an all-American in the 4x400 and the 4x100. “But for the most part, he’s learning and he’s willing to learn. The receiving room says he’s cheating because he has yet to develop any flaws, everything he’s learning through this process has been through me. The future is bright for him. He’s producing and he’s getting better every day.”

As for those other intriguing pieces, Grambling State transfer Antonio Jones, who recorded 595 receiving yards last season under Carrier, is coming off an injury that kept him out of spring ball. Fellow transfer Kajiya Hollawayne, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound redshirt junior, initially started his career as a quarterback at UCLA, where he redshirted as a true freshman in 2021. He left there and crossed paths with Carrier at Grambling in 2022 before catching 22 passes for 425 yards and three touchdowns last season at Riverside Community College. Adams, a walk-on out of South Jersey’s Deptford High School, began to show signs of promise last season in catching 15 passes for 149 yards and two touchdowns. He’s back after a leg injury at UAB prematurely ended his season last November.

True freshmen Bryson Goodwin, Tyler Stewart and Jamar Taylor Jr. could get opportunities this fall, as could sophomore Xavier Irvin.

“I think every guy in the room has taken drastic steps on becoming an all-around wide receiver,” Carrier said, “whether it's learning multiple positions, blocking or catching the ball. Just doing the little things these guys have really bought into and they are starting to reap the rewards of it.”

In Carrier’s first few months at Temple, redshirt sophomore Cole Sprague has already emerged as Carrier's “favorite guy.”

Sprague, a graduate of Delaware County’s Cardinal O’Hara High School, caught 44 passes for 466 yards and three touchdowns at Nassau Community College before walking on at Temple prior to the 2023 season. He redshirted last year, but he has quickly gotten the endorsement of his new position coach.

“Cole does not ask for anything. He’s another leader in that room and he just makes your job easier,” Carrier said. “He knows every position. You tell him to go and he just asks what position or where he’s going and he goes in there and gives it his all.”

When Carrier was asked by a reporter if his players are aware of what he accomplished at Houston, he smiled.

“They do a great job about reminding me of certain things, embarrassing things also,” he said. “Dante Wright is the ringleader of it all and has got everybody involved. Every so often, I walk in the meeting room and there's a picture of me in college that I don’t know how they got, but I know who did it.

“But for the most part, they are sponges, man. These kids easily Google you as soon as you get the job. They did a great job of finding out who I am and really listening to every word I say.”

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