With a new position coach, a new base defensive formation and a number of new faces, Temple’s defensive tackles room is hopeful that the Owls will bounce back from a forgettable 2023 season.
Simply put, nothing went Temple's way in 2023 in regards to the defensive tackle position. Injuries to players like K.J. Miles, Demerick Morris and Allan Haye forced Conlan Greene into a starting role as a true freshman, Chevy Trask to transition back to the position from the offensive line midseason and Joseph Appiah-Darkwa to play his first meaningful snaps at the collegiate level. As a result, the Owls went from being a Top 10 team in 2022 in both sacks and tackles for a loss to a bottom-half team in both categories.
Due to a combination of getting healthy and recruiting, Temple coach Stan Drayton and new defensive tackles coach Kevon Beckwith are optimistic that the Owls should be better as a unit in 2024.
Greene returns for his sophomore season and Miles, Morris and Haye are all full participants in the Owls’ preseason camp. In addition to the return of those four, Temple went out and added junior college transfers Sekou Kromah and Joseph Auzenne to a recruiting class that also featured FAU transfer Latrell Jean. True freshmen Russell Sykes (260 pounds) and Sultan Badmus (265 pounds) could end up as defensive tackles, but are currently listed as ends.
While Appiah Darkwa and Trask are gone, as are Lancine Turay and three-year starter Jerquavion Mahone, a number of established players are expected to rotate through the defensive interior in 2024. Before getting injured against Tulsa, Haye, a transfer from Miami, started the first five games of the season for the Owls. Morris, meanwhile, started 10 games in 2022 before getting injured during the 2023 preseason. The return of the injured players, as well as the noted additions, have made for a very competitive group, Beckwith said.
“You can't go into that D tackle room and not be a dog,” Beckwith told reporters Monday afternoon. “I know that I got to bring my A game every day… It's competition and it's a hustle every day.”
“At one point, Temple was known for the up front, right? Up front, we got Matt Hennessy, you got Haason Reddick. We're trying to recruit that caliber of player here. And that's what's going on,” Beckwith added. “I want to win football games. That's my number one. And you do that with adding quality players, quality intent with quality dogs. You add dogs to the front and you'll hopefully see a product on the field that translates to that.”
One player the staff brought in that appears to have hit the ground running is the 6-foot-3, 280-pound Jean. The sixth-year senior started 18 games in his career for Florida Atlantic and played the second-most defensive line snaps for the Owls last season, behind current San Francisco 49er Evan Anderson. The Lakeland, Florida native decided to transfer from his alma mater after the spring, however, and ended up at Temple in part to replace Jason Moore. Moore, a transfer from Georgia Tech who signed with Temple in January, chose to transfer back to Georgia Tech prior to the summer, which left a veteran void in the room.
Since becoming a different type of Owl, Jean has become one of the leaders of the defensive line room, Drayton said.
“[Jean] is a veteran, you know, and he's acting as such,” Drayton told reporters Monday afternoon. “He has a very mature approach to his business every single day. The thing I love about Latrell is that he's showing some signs of leadership. He got into a brand-new group and got acclimated and they act like they've been together forever.”
“We saw that early in the recruiting process, just evaluating intangibles we needed,” Beckwith added. “We knew we had to replace a guy like Jason Moore. We had a strong presence in the middle and so we went out and tried to find that impact player. He's proven himself. He's proven himself to his teammates every day by his actions, not by a lot of words. He's an alpha dog. So when things need to be said, he'll speak up. I think every day he's earned the respect because of how he goes about his business every day.”
One of the bright spots from Temple’s otherwise lackluster 2023 season was the emergence of Greene on the defensive line. Greene, who played quarterback in high school, showed up to campus with enough added weight to play as a freshman and ended up starting eight games for the Owls at defensive tackle. Now a sophomore, Greene is in the mix for consistent playing time at the position and has hustled so far this camp, Beckwith said.
“You could see the production yesterday. He had TFL, two tackles, an assist, was on the ground, got in on the screen down the field,” Beckwith said. “There's no room for error and no room for lack of effort, lack of motor. That shows up on the tape. We're going to be preparing on the tape and everybody's working to try to get into that rotation. He's in that mix.”
Miles has yet to take a collegiate snap but was a four-star prospect out of St. Peter’s Prep in New Jersey who garnered offers from schools like Alabama, Auburn and Georgia before signing with Georgia Tech in 2021. He redshirted for the Yellow Jackets in 2022 before transferring to Temple in 2023. A preseason injury kept him out of the entirety of the 2023 season. Kromah, meanwhile, spent the 2023 season at Monroe College, where he finished his junior college career with the most tackles for a loss in program history.
Whether it’s due to the progression of Greene, the additions of Jean and Kromah, the returns of Miles, Haye and Morris or the emergence of a true freshman like Badmus or Sykes, the Owls have reason to believe that they should, at the very least, have much more depth at the position in 2024.
Despite the depth developments, Temple, as a team, was picked by the media to finish last in The American in 2024.
That preseason prediction was noticed by Beckwith, who disagrees with the assessment.
“We're underestimated right now. We're very underestimated,” Beckwith said. “I’m going to pay attention to the polls. I know people say to ignore the crowd noise but we're out to take respect at this point.”
