Stan Drayton enters second season as Temple’s football coach with lessons learned

Stan Drayton paused for a moment, reflected, and repeated the question.

“Lessons learned?” He began to expound on that thought. “There’s a lot of lessons learned.”

The head coach has one season under his belt leading Temple football. His first year was filled with roster changes, getting to know players, and trying to build consistency to win games for a team that has won seven games since 2020.

So what has he learned about being a head coach after one year?

“There were some mistakes that I made last year that were critical,” Drayton said Tuesday during media day at Edberg-Olson Hall. “I’m not afraid to uncover those. I think I was in a rush to find leaders because I understand how important leadership is.

“I was hard-pressed to find those leaders; didn’t really know our team very well. I made some mistakes in that respect. This year, I’m going to take my time. I’m going to listen to our players, which I probably could have done a better job of last year, with regards to picking leadership. There were players that told me who they follow; those players hadn’t proved it to me at that given point in time.”

» READ MORE: Temple coach Stan Drayton says ‘a lot of question marks’ were answered this offseason

Drayton added about 50 new faces to the Owls’ roster this season, but about half the team is returning from last year’s 3-9 squad. Some of their top players are underclassmen, he said, but Drayton’s ultimate focus is to establish depth before the season opener against Akron on Sept. 2 at Lincoln Financial Field (2 p.m., ESPN+).

When he sets foot in the locker room Wednesday for the first day of training camp, Drayton wants this year’s Owls to be intentional with their goals.

“I don’t want a goal-setting team that’s not real about achieving those goals,” he said. “I want their actions, every action, to represent what they want to do, and I hope that is win a championship — that’s the program’s goal. That’s going to be the challenge: to eliminate the human element and put the team goals first.”

Drayton referred to sophomore quarterback E.J. Warner, son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, as “a leader by example.”

“He can very easily go into a dark room, grab a remote control, and turn video on and watch it all day,” Drayton said. “His teammates walk past him and they’ll see him prepping, and they’ll be encouraged by that to do the same thing.”

Warner was named Temple’s starting quarterback in Week 3 against Rutgers last season and wound up having several promising starts. He completed 60% of his passes (268 of 443) for 3,028 yards and 18 touchdowns, which earned him the American Athletic Conference’s Rookie of the Year award.

However, Warner was humble about his role on the team. It was difficult to command an offense, being one of the youngest on the team, until Drayton had a conversation with him.

“He doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers at all,” Drayton said. “Sometimes you’ve just got to sort of talk to him and give him the green light. ... But he knows what to do, and, again, he’s doing a much better job of it.”

Warner added: “I think the big thing is having [Drayton’s] trust. You want to look behind your back and your coaches build trust in you to go out there and play your best, [it] lets you play free.”

The quarterback room returns Quincy Patterson while adding junior Forrest Brock, a transfer from Santa Monica Community College, and freshmen Tyler Douglas and Patrick Keller. Warner setting an example for the pack, Drayton said, has made for better competition.

Drayton added that there’s a good chance the staff will cross-train Patterson in other positions but not completely remove him from the quarterback room.

The Temple football single-digit tradition continues.

There will be single-digit jersey numbers given out this year, but Drayton isn’t ready yet for the team to make that decision. The two returners who wear single digits, which is one of the highest honors that a Temple football player can earn, are linebacker Jordan Magee (No. 6) and cornerback Jalen McMurray (7).

Running back Edward Saydee, a graduate student who led the Owls with 639 rushing yards and six touchdowns on 149 attempts last season, hopes to receive that recognition this fall.

“That’s very important to me,” Saydee said. “The first important thing would be get a championship, but getting a single digit would put a stamp on who I am, what I’ve been doing here, and how I carry myself. I feel like training camp coming up, if I do what I’m supposed to do — lead my team, my action, my words, carry the young guys — I feel like it should happen.”