Thursday’s loss to Army has Temple still searching for back-to-back wins in the Stan Drayton era

On Thursday night, Temple had a legitimate opportunity to win two games in a week, significant when you consider head coach Stan Drayton has not won back-to-back games since taking over the program.

He’ll have to wait a while longer, as Temple lost to a red-hot Army team, 42-14, at Lincoln Financial Field. The Owls (1-4, 0-2 American Athletic Conference) put up three scoreless quarters but had two touchdowns in the fourth. However, the Black Knights held off Temple’s rally en route to their third conference win.

Here are three takeaways from what amounted to the Owls’ fifth consecutive AAC loss:

The Owls finished with minus-5 yards on 22 attempts, a season low. Quarterback Evan Simon completed 19 of his 30 pass attempts for 224 yards and a touchdown. However, the junior transfer was sacked seven times, the most Temple has given up since 2010.

“Credit to Army; everyone will tell you they were the better team,” Simon said. “They really were. They were a physical team; they play hard.”

Temple had 15 third-down opportunities and needed to pick up more than 5 yards on 11 of those attempts. The Owls converted just seven third downs against Army. The Owls crossed into Army’s territory just four times, and their longest drive was seven plays and 75 yards at the end of the third quarter.

Army entered the matchup as the second-best rushing offense in the country. On Thursday, the Black Knights had 417 rushing yards and only needed to complete 3 of 6 passes to do damage.

They also won the time of possession battle by nearly 11 minutes. Quarterback Bryson Daily led all rushers with 152 yards and three touchdowns, and running back Kanye Udoh added 128 yards and a score.

“No one has stopped the run against [Army] all year,” Drayton said. “I don’t really want to use that as an excuse. That’s what they do. They’re really damn good at it. We have to find a way to interiorly be more stout than we were today.”

Temple hadn’t given up more than 400 rushing yards since its 34-14 loss to South Florida on Oct. 23, 2021.

The Owls had several chances to change the game’s complexion but couldn’t take advantage.

Simon found junior wide receiver Antonio Jones on a 49-yard catch-and-run in the first three minutes of the game, but offensive lineman Diego Barajas was penalized for holding.

Then, long snapper Andrew McIlquham nearly recovered a muffed punt at the 8-minute, 25-second mark of the second quarter, but the officials ruled that Army recovered the ball after the scrum. The referees made a similar call near the end of the first half when they ruled that Daily made an incomplete pass when defensive end Diwun Black appeared to strip the quarterback.

“We did everything out there today that warrants losing the ballgame,” Drayton said. “Didn’t protect the quarterback very well today; we’ve got to figure that out. [We had] a lot of miscommunication going on out there. Holding penalties taking touchdowns off the board, just sloppy play early. We need to address what’s happening in the interior on defense.”

The Owls get a bit of a break before trying to bounce back on the road against UConn (2-2) on Oct. 5 (3:30 p.m., CBSSN). In another series of firsts, a win against the Huskies would be Drayton’s first road victory as well.

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