‘Self-confidence’ a key talking point for Temple heading into its season-opening showdown against Oklahoma

Two weeks from Friday, Temple’s football squad will journey to Norman, Okla. to face the No. 16 ranked Oklahoma Sooners, hosting its first Friday night game in their stadium’s history (7 p.m. ESPN). As the Owls prepare for a stiff road test to open their 2024 campaign, head coach Stan Drayton and his staff will host an intrasquad scrimmage later tonight at Benjamin Franklin High School to give their largely new roster experience in preparing for a road environment.

Friday night’s scrimmage will also give the Owls’ coaching staff an opportunity to identify their key contributors this season. While Drayton remains firm that the quarterback competition between Forrest Brock, Evan Simon, and Tyler Douglas continues, he thinks “our players will have a real sense of it in practice as we move forward.”

“But again, I just don’t want to underestimate the quarterbacks [who] are in that room that are putting forth really good effort and prep as we get closer and closer to this game,” Drayton said during Temple’s football media day on Friday. “I think we are getting close. We do know the strengths and weaknesses of our quarterbacks right now, and it’s going to be a combination of how they fit the surrounding cast around them.”

Though Temple hasn’t faced Oklahoma in football since 1942, one transfer portal addition, transfer safety Andreas Keaton, has already played at the Sooners’ stadium. As a freshman in 2021, Keaton, who played for Western Carolina, was routed in a 76-0 blowout. The senior finished with five tackles in his second career game and was the Catamounts leading tackler over the last two seasons.

“I was really young at the time, so it was a cool atmosphere to play in at a young age and just to go and get that experience out the way,” Keaton recalls. “It was loud, it was a good crowd, good atmosphere. It was live and enjoyable [to play in].”

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So, how is Temple preparing for that atmosphere in 14 days? Drayton says he’s instilling in his team “a level of self-confidence about themselves, where the crowd noise and the opponent doesn’t matter.” But they’ve also played crowd noise at practice to resemble a stadium that holds over 80,000 people at full capacity, like Oklahoma’s.

New to college football this season is coach-to-player communications through the helmet of one player on the field, approved by the NCAA’s Playing Rules Oversight Panel in April. But that communication will be shut off with 15 seconds left on the play clock. On offense, the quarterback will have the “green dot,” but on defense, Temple has experimented with the safety and linebacker positions having those capabilities.

Keaton is one of the players who sometimes has the responsibility but so does return senior linebacker D.J. Woodbury, stepping into the starting role with Jordan Magee and Yvandy Rigby, off to the NFL. It took nearly an entire practice for Woodbury to adjust to not looking over to the sideline to get the defensive call.

“It’s very exciting having someone telling you what to do, like telling you the plays in your head,” Woodbury said Friday. “So I don’t always [have] to look to the sideline. or wait for the communication. … I can just get it immediately and just set everything faster.”

“It’s been real good, something new, of course, for you know, the whole college atmosphere, but it hasn’t been no complicated features,” Keaton added.

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But the strengthening of communication goes beyond the helmet. Temple’s roster has seen a lot of turnover, including the offensive line room, which started the same five players along the line just twice last season. Tight end James Della Pesca, who is one of the few players remaining from Rod Carey’s tenure with the Owls, has seen the offensive line take the biggest jump in communicating presnap to be on the same page. He credits the jump to the addition of potential starting center Grayson Mains, who joined the Owls in the offseason from South Carolina.

“We do have a lot of run schemes, and just overall, communication has definitely sharpened up,” Della Pesca said. “And at the end of the day, running the ball is an attitude I think we’ve definitely embraced how it started in the weight room. [Grayson] is a great communicator. He goes up to the ball and he points everything out. He’s very football smart, and the guys really respect him, even though he’s a younger guy. … He has that respect, and he works really hard at his job.”

Defensive tackle Allan Haye, who was injured during the Tulsa game last season, says he’s close to returning. “I don’t think the coaches expected me to be where I’m at right now, so I think I’m ahead of the curve,” he said. … Wide receiver Ian Stewart is the lone Temple player thus far with a single-digit jersey. Drayton says he expects to announce the rest of those players leading up to their season opener. …Temple’s 2025 American Athletic Conference opponents were announced Thursday. The Owls will host East Carolina, Navy, UTSA, and Tulane, and travel to Army, Charlotte, North Texas, and Tulsa. They’ll kick off their nonconference schedule with a road date with UMass (Aug. 30), host Oklahoma on Sept. 13, and close out with a road game against Georgia Tech on Sept. 20.