Stan Drayton talks recruiting, roster
Temple second-year head football coach Stan Drayton spoke with reporters Tuesday afternoon on Zoom to talk about a number of topics, including the seven recruits the Owls added during the February signing period, the beginning of winter workouts, former Owl Joe Klecko’s inclusion in the 2023 Pro Football Hall of Fame class, and the development of rising sophomore quarterback E.J. Warner.
Temple, which is coming off a 3-9 2022 season in Drayton’s first year on North Broad Street, is less than a month away from spring practice and will host its annual Cherry and White spring game on Saturday, April 8, at 3 p.m.
You can listen to Drayton’s session with reporters here and read some excerpts from the interview below.
Drayton on Florida transfers Diwun Black and Kamar Wilcoxson:
“The one thing about those two players is that they’ve got playing experience under their belt, both of which are coming from the University of Florida that were a part of a coaching change. When that coaching staff change came in, they were struggling to find their role on the football team. Diwun Black is a guy who goes to Florida from Mississippi, voted the top player out of the state of Mississippi, signs with Florida, and they are playing him all over the place. So you’re looking at a 6-2 ½ frame that came to us at 210 (pounds), and now he’s currently sitting at 230. So I get what coaches were trying to figure out with him. He played nickel, he played linebacker, he played rush end, he even played safety at one point. He’s just a guy who 's going to bring some diversity on defense that way. But he is a hell of an athlete, has a good football IQ because of playing all of those positions, and we’re really excited about what his body is doing right now and his approach to the game, and the level of discipline that he’s showing that this point and joining our program. We feel and hope that he’s going to be very, very valuable for us. We’re going to find a home on defense for him, make sure that he can get good at something. But when that time comes until then, I think he is developing the way we need him to develop and expect him to be a good player for us.
“Kamar Wilcoxson is a young man who in my first team meeting stood up and talked about him wanting to hold people accountable, him needing people to hold him accountable. Just showing really good traits of leadership early on, and I love that. Part of our program is to develop leadership, and he’s already developing some natural traits of that. At Florida, he had a tough experience. He was a guy who obviously in the secondary, again part of that coaching change, found himself not being as valuable to that coaching staff at Florida. He was struggling a little bit just mentally if he wanted to play the game a lot. Now, I think he’s got a breath of fresh air being a part of our program where his leadership is needed, and from a numbers standpoint on the back end, he’s going to add some value right away for us. But again, another guy who’s working his butt off, who’s took the culture by the hand and is represented every single day, both on and off the field.”
Drayton on the relationship between returning starter E.J. Warner and incoming freshman quarterback recruit Tyler Douglas:
“Those two guys are tied at the hip right now. We’ve got Tyler in here, he’s one of our early enrollees. E.J. is leading the charge of that quarterback room and those guys are tied at the hip. The one thing I can say about Tyler, he’s very excited to learn from E.J. One thing I can say about E.J. is that he’s excited to continue to learn and get better. So you’ve got two motivated, self-motivated individuals that are working with each other every single day. Obviously, when you get that kind of camaraderie and that kind of competition in the room, you can expect those guys to get better. So it’s critically important that they have a level of respect for each other that way and understand that it’s still a competition, without losing the camaraderie that needs to be built between the two. So I think with those two guys both being unselfish characters, they’re doing a great job of coexisting with each other and everything right now.”
Drayton on former Temple and New York Jets star Joe Klecko getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame:
"It's tremendous. I mean, you're talking about a young man at one point that had to try to figure it out while he was here as a football player. I'm sure he had his trials and tribulations, went on to the NFL and became a Hall of Famer. And there's not a football player on this football team that doesn't have the hopes and dreams of being an NFL football player and hopefully being a Hall of Famer one day. And for us to be able to say that, hey, we got one from Temple that did it, the one that walked on this campus just like you. They had to fight through some things just like you are right now and can come back and talk to our kids about the journey, wearing Cherry and White and ended up how he did as a Hall of Famer, I think is priceless. It goes a tremendously long way."