After an 0-3 start full of miscues, self-inflicted wounds and a national media outlet that has routinely ranked the program among the worst in the nation, Temple needed a win and a good storyline Saturday.

Evan Simon delivered both.

After his team fell behind by 14 points and after Simon himself misfired on seven of his first eight attempts, the redshirt-junior quarterback responded with the best game of his college career, accounting for six total touchdowns in Temple’s 45-29 win over Utah State at Lincoln Financial Field.

Following that 1 of 8 start, Simon went on to complete 16 of his next 19 throws and finished 17 of 27 passing for 271 yards and five touchdowns. His perfectly thrown 91-yard touchdown pass to Dante Wright with a little more than four minutes left in the third quarter helped put Temple ahead for good at 24-21. He added two more touchdown tosses to his tight ends in the fourth quarter – a 16-yarder to freshman Daniel Evert and a nicely thrown 2-yarder over Utah State safety Jordan Vincent to Peter Clarke near the back of the end zone – and later closed out the scoring with 3:22 to go on a 1-yard, tush push-esque play.

The last time Simon experienced a win as a starting quarterback, he was wearing a Rutgers uniform and did it at Lincoln Financial Field against Temple back on Sept. 17 of 2022 when the Scarlet Knights scratched out a 16-14 win over the Owls. He eventually lost the starting job to Gavin Wimsatt, transferred to Temple after last season, and now seems to have taken hold of the Owls’ starting job after first watching Forrest Brock take it coming out of preseason camp.

How’s that for a storyline?

“I kind of blocked it out,” Simon said of the full-circle journey back to winning at the Linc. “I'm just at this moment here now. I'm really proud of this football team. We battled a lot of adversity in the beginning of the game, and the leadership on this team took over. I’m very proud of this football team, and boy, do I love them.”

The feeling is mutual after what Simon did Saturday.

“I love how Evan stepped up to the challenge,” said linebacker and ECU transfer Tyquan King, who led the Owls with 13 tackles and a sack and stepped into the starting lineup to play alongside D.J. Woodbury when Eric Stuart went down with an injury this week. “Adversity is something that a lot of people face. Some people fall to adversity, but when you stand up to it, it’s definitely great in the end.”

A 3-star recruit who garnered offers from programs like Pitt, Cincinnati, West Virginia and Temple before choosing Rutgers, Simon played at Manheim Central High School, about 30 minutes northwest of Lancaster. He threw for more than 8,000 yards – the second-most in Lancaster-Lebanon League history – and had a PIAA Class 5A state title game and three district title games on his resume by the time he got to the Big Ten with Rutgers.

But things didn’t work out as planned with the Scarlet Knights, and Simon didn’t win Temple’s starting job out of spring ball or even out of preseason camp, as Brock started the first two games of the season in losses at then-No. 16 Oklahoma and Navy. Brock sustained a bruise to his right wrist in the loss to the Midshipmen, which partly paved the way for Simon to start last week in Temple’s loss to Coastal Carolina.

Drayton declined to reveal a starter ahead of Saturday’s game when he spoke with reporters during his weekly Monday press conference. He talked about Simon’s experience and moxie, but he also said there was a reason Brock had won the job out of camp.

Saturday, Simon was a big reason why the Owls recovered from what Drayton called “one of the worst first quarters of offensive quarters I’ve seen in a long time” and grabbed the win.

“He’s exactly what we need right now,” Drayton said of Simon.

While Temple produced just 24 yards on 11 plays in the first quarter, the Owls’ defense was struggling with some of its own issues, particularly poor tackling, and spotted Utah State that 14-0 lead in the second quarter after true freshman Herschel Turner’s 4-yard touchdown run and Spencer Petras’ 26-yard scoring pass to Jaylen Royals.

Then Simon went to work, getting Temple on the board with a 32-yard push pass to Grambling transfer Antonio Jones on a smart play call from Owls offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf. A little more than six minutes later, Simon connected with running back and Maryland transfer Antwain Littleton on a 17-yard touchdown pass that, coupled with Maddux Trujillo’s extra point, tied the game at 14 with 1:10 left before halftime and Temple looking to get the ball first in the third quarter after halftime.

The 70 seconds that followed represented the most important momentum shift of the day.

After the Simon-to-Littleton scoring connection, Pottstown native Rahsul Faison, a player Drayton said he tried to recruit to Temple, scored on a 20-yard touchdown run with just 17 seconds left before halftime. Utah State marched 75 yards way too easily on six plays in just 53 seconds, and a return blow didn’t look likely at the time for the Owls. Faison was on his way to a 148-yard day, and the Aggies’ response gave them a 21-14 lead.

But JUCO transfer running back Terrez Worthy, one of Temple’s unsung heroes on Saturday, returned the ensuing kickoff 34 yards, and Simon hit tight end James Della Pesca for 11 yards on first down to get the Owls to the Utah State 46-yard line before Drayton called timeout with five seconds left and sent Trujillo out for a 64-yard field goal attempt.

Trujillo, an Austin Peay transfer who missed and made 54-yard field goals in last week’s loss, got enough leg into his 64-yard attempt to drop it onto the crossbar. From there, the ball bounced across it for the make and electrified the Owls’ sideline before they went into halftime down just four points.

Trujillo’s 64-yarder is the longest in Lincoln Financial Field history, besting Philadelphia Eagles placekicker Jake Elliott’s two 61-yard field goals in 2023 and 2017. It was also the longest field goal in the history of the Temple program and the longest collegiate kick since UTEP’s Jose Martinez hit a 64-yarder back in 2008 against UCF.

And Trujillo, who said he hit a 70-yarder in warmups at Navy, said he didn’t even hit the 64-yarder as well as he wanted.

“I didn't catch it absolutely perfect,” said Trujillo, who played at Flowery Branch High School, about 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta, before kicking at Austin Peay for three seasons prior to his arrival at Temple. “It's kind of a weird thing to say and kind of a cocky thing to say, but I didn't really catch it perfect, so I was kind of hoping that it would get there. Just get it on the right line, make it even if it falls short on the uprights, just make sure it stays there. Two weeks in a row, I've had one bounce in for me. So if that's not God's plan, I don't know what is.”

The record-setting kick sent Trujillo jumping into the air and proved to be exactly what his team needed.

“It really took a lot of momentum into the locker room for halftime, for sure,” Drayton said. “Our players have seen them hit that field goal quite a few times in practice. … But to actually see it happen in the game is something special.”

Safety Javier Morton, who lamented dropping an interception he likely could have returned for a touchdown, said he was happy to see a fellow Georgia native break a record.

“All of it,” Morton said when asked how much energy Trujillo’s 64-yarder gave the Owls. “Maddux is from Atlanta, I’m from Atlanta, so it turned me all the way up, and I knew he had gotten a record when he did that, so that was crazy. That gave us the energy we needed. We needed that going into halftime after giving up the score, so that brought us back right on. It put us right back where we needed to be.”

Aside from Simon and Trujillo, there were other reasons the Owls won Saturday. In addition to his return that set up Trujillo’s field goal, Worthy showed some speed and burst as a runner out of the backfield and gave Temple 48 yards on his five carries, while Littleton added 42 on 10 attempts. Drayton said he wasn’t sure if the team would have Wright after he suffered an injury in practice this week, but the Owls’ veteran receiver told his head coach he was good to go and contributed 116 yards on three catches, including the 91-yard score.

And although he dropped an interception, Morton was otherwise a steady tackler with 10 stops. King and defensive end Tra Thomas registered sacks, and UTEP transfer Torey Richardson’s late-game interception marked the Owls’ first takeaway of the season.

But the storyline heading into the season was always about the question marks at quarterback and who was going to replace E.J. Warner, who bolted into the transfer portal after last season and wound up at Rice.

Even after what Simon did Saturday, Drayton said he and his staff are going to continue to evaluate the position “every single day.”

“But, I tell you what, he is playing good football for us right now,” Drayton said, “and he's bringing exactly what we need from a demeanor standpoint. We're always going to have a next-man-up mentality. You have to here at Temple. Everybody has to be ready when their number is called, and no one can get complacent. So I'm never going to put a name in concrete like that guy, that's the absolute starter.

“There’s something about competition and earning it every week that makes a player better, right? And so I'm not writing Forrest off, but Forrest has got some work to do. There's no question about it. We're liking the rhythm that Evan has us in right now.”

The end of Drayton’s postgame press conference became an impromptu conversation with Simon, who was sitting in the back of the room waiting for his turn to talk to reporters. When Drayton was asked if Simon was the type of player who needed to get acclimated through the spring and preseason camp and then turned out to play his best football outside of practice, Drayton first said, “I’m learning (about) Evan,” as he began to crack a smile.

“Hey, coach!” Simon shouted from the back of the room.

“How you doing, bud?” Drayton replied with a laugh.

Things could change, of course. Temple has a short week ahead and hosts a 3-0 Army team that just coasted to a 37-14 win over Rice. Simon still has more to prove, and a four-day work week will be his next test.

But Drayton tipped his hand a bit in terms of who his likely starter will be Thursday night and couldn’t hide his appreciation or his affection for Simon.

“I love Evan,” Drayton said. “Again, there's no one that is strong willed more so than that young man right there, and there's something to be said for that. You can look at all the measurables and athletic attributes, but again, like I said earlier, somebody needs to open that kid's chest up and look at his heart. It’s as big as this stadium, and he's tough as nails, and he's got something to prove, and that's the reason why we wanted him here in the very first place, because he had a chip on his shoulder.

“I probably asked you that, Evan, three or four times in the recruiting process,” Drayton continued, looking back again at Simon near the back of the room as his quarterback nodded in response. “You got a real chip. Is that chip sharp? And we need that coming out of our quarterbacks, so he provides that for us.”

Watch Saturday's postgame interviews here.