Owls see small signs of progress from Saydee while o-line shuffles
Bright spots are getting harder to come by for a rebuilding Temple football program that is now 2-5 and in the midst of a three-game losing streak after Friday night’s 27-16 setback to Tulsa before a sparse crowd of 13,607 fans at Lincoln Financial Field.
But for an Owls team that took the 128th-ranked rushing offense into Friday night’s game, Edward Saydee’s performance offered a small sliver of hope for a backfield that needs a playmaker to emerge.
Saydee’s 20 carries and 69 yards were both career highs, and 59 of those yards came on 12 first-half carries when freshman quarterback E.J. Warner and the passing game couldn’t get much going. And although it came mostly on check-downs and although he couldn’t make much happen after the catch, Saydee was targeted six times and caught five passes.
Saydee, a 5-foot-11, 215-pound Philadelphia native and Penn Charter graduate, is one of four backs who have gotten their shot in the backfield, along with Texas A&M transfer Darvon Hubbard, redshirt freshman Trey Blair and Illinois transfer Jakari Norwood, who is no longer on the roster and dealing with personal issues according to Temple head coach Stan Drayton.
“My mindset is stuck on being ready all the time,” Saydee said Friday night. “Regardless of who’s starting, we’re all ready, so whoever he puts in has got to be ready at all times, so I was just doing my job, regardless of whether my name was called or not.”
To provide some context, Saydee was facing the 128th-ranked rushing defense in FBS, and he’ll need to continue to prove himself against better defenses in the coming weeks. But considering he’s playing with an 18-year-old true freshman quarterback in Warner and behind an offensive line that has started seven different lineups in each of Temple’s seven games, it could potentially be something to build upon.
“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.”
As for the offensive line, Saydee and Warner were playing behind Isaac Moore at left tackle, 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 did not return, although Drayton said Klein wanted to come back into the game. Faminu left with an injury later in the second half and was replaced by Wisdom Quarshie.
Temple’s next test is a road game at Navy next Saturday in Annapolis. Heading into Saturday’s game against Houston, the Midshipmen boasted the American Athletic Conference’s top run defense before the Cougars cruised to a 38-20 win and rushed for 180 yards on 34 carries.
Getting Klein back next weekend at center would obviously be critical for an offensive line that has struggled to stay healthy and provide consistency.
“Obviously it was enough of a hit to get him out of the ballgame,” Drayton said of the third-quarter play that sent Klein out of the game. “But just kind of looking at his demeanor and watching him push those young linemen to give everything they’ve got toward the end of the ballgame shows me that he’s going to be just fine. He’s actually agitated that he wasn’t allowed to finish the game today.”
Front page photo by Don Otto.