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Published Feb 28, 2023
Stan Drayton shares his thoughts on Owls' first spring practice
Max Dinenberg
OwlScoop.com Staff Reporter

Temple second-year head football coach Stan Drayton spoke with reporters Tuesday afternoon on Zoom to begin his weekly press conferences during the spring football season.

Drayton talked about a multitude of topics, including the competitive cornerback room, freshman running back and midyear enrollee Kyle Williams, and how quarterback E.J. Warner has looked in the weight room.

Temple, which is coming off a 3-9 2022 season in Drayton’s first year on North Broad Street, will host its annual Cherry and White spring game on Saturday, April 8, at 3 p.m. following over a month of practices that will not be open to reporters. The Owls practiced Tuesday and will practice again Thursday before leaving for the university’s spring break next week.

When asked returning offensive linemen starters James Faminu and Victor Stoffel, Drayton said both players will miss part of spring ball due to offseason surgeries.

“The one thing that I can talk about for them is that they feel great," Drayton said. "They are already on track to getting their strength back and their functionality back."

Drayton also said the Owls are close to hiring a new running backs coach, signaling that recently-hired running backs coach Jameel Matunga has already left the program.

OwlScoop.com has the latest information on Drayton's next target for that position.

You can watch Drayton’s session with reporters here and read some excerpts from the interview below.

Drayton on the competitive cornerback room:

“I think we did a great job of recruiting some depth at that position. You got Ben Osueke. He’s going to add some speed and length and you got some great returners in Dominick Hill, (Jalen) McMurray, and Corey Palmer. Those guys are really good athletes who can run. They’re aggressive and they love the game of football. You get somebody like Jalen, who was a single digit, who played a lot that season last year banged up. We didn’t have the luxury of giving him time to really recover from time to time. Now when you add depth, you can take a little bit off of Jalen’s plate, manage his reps in practice and get a better product out there on game day. It’s going to be a very competitive room. We got a brand new coach in there in Dominique Bowman. The players have received him very well. He’s gotten into that unit and got into their lives rather quickly. So they are already believing what this man is bringing to the table and they believe in how he can develop them to where they want to go. So it’s a great situation in our room right now. … With Jalen leading that room and him trying to give some of that demeanor onto his teammates is a pretty neat thing to see.”

Drayton on Kyle Williams:

“Well, there are signs where you can tell he’s still a freshman, just coming out of high school and managing school and football and lifting and all the other good stuff. At first, it took him a little bit of time to get into a routine. I think he is starting to settle into a routine. I think he’s got a bunch of really good guys around him, Edward (Saydee) and (Darvon) Hubbard in particular that have done it before that have grabbed him by the arm and are walking him through the process right now, and he’s receiving that very well. There’s no doubt that he is a talented football player. Very, very good feet, very good quickness. I think his role will expand depending on how much he can really handle on his plate, and it’s really so early to tell right now. We’re just at install one, and he’s had an opportunity over the last couple of weeks to really get himself ready for the execution of install one. We won’t just stop at install one. So I think we’ll know a lot more of how he’ll contribute to this football team based upon how he can handle the playbook.”

Drayton on how E.J. Warner has performed in the weight room:

“E.J., first of all, was labeled by our strength coaches as one of our weight room warriors. That’s the kind of stuff that you want to hear about your quarterback. He attacked every workout. His personality is coming out. He’s wearing his emotions on his sleeve. He’s got the offense following him and I think he in his mind knows that he’s got to take ownership of what we’re trying to do on offense. In that respect, he’s looked great. He went out there and threw the ball around. He didn’t skip a beat that way. I think that with the strength gains and the stretching and all the things that we’re doing to make him a little bit more fluid as an athlete, it’s definitely carried over into his execution at quarterback. So I’m excited to see what that’s going to look like. But, the ceiling is very high and he’s got the right mindset. So I’m just excited to see how far it’s going to take him.”

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