Temple coach Rod Carey starts spring practice with the task of sorting out the QB position

Temple held its first spring football practice on Monday, and third-year coach Rod Carey knew that the quarterback situation would be among the first topics addressed after three-year starter Anthony Russo entered the transfer portal and now attends Michigan State.

Not surprisingly after one practice, Carey wasn’t ready to anoint a starter but he does hope to have some clarity by the time spring practice ends.

“What I am hoping for and I don’t know if I will get it, is if somebody takes it and runs away with it and wins the job and it’s very easy at the end of spring to name that or at some point to name that going into fall camp,” Carey said on Monday in a Zoom interview with the media after practice. “I don’t know if we get to that, but I hope we do, that is what I am hoping for.”

» READ MORE: Five questions heading into Temple’s football spring practice

The player drawing the most attention is 6-foot-6, 205-pound redshirt freshman D’Wan Mathis, who started the first game this past season for Georgia at quarterback. Mathis lost his starting job before that first game ended.

Still, getting an SEC player, especially at quarterback, will bring big expectations at a Group of 5 school such as Temple.

“The number one thing he has to do this spring is just get comfortable with the offense,” Carey said. “All the physical abilities are there, he can throw, he run, the whole deal.”

Adapting to a new system will be the key.

“He just has to learn this offense, which is a new offense and he has to get comfortable so those decisions can be made at the speed which they have to be made at,” Carey said. “Right now it is a steep learning curve.”

Redshirt sophomore Re’al Mitchell, who appeared in three games last season after transferring from Iowa State, has experience in the Temple offense among quarterback candidates. There are several others on the roster who will also compete in the spring.

This will be a new-look team no matter who earns the quarterback job. The Owls lost 11 players to the transfer portal and two more who bypassed their final year of eligibility to enter the NFL draft. There are also nine players the Owls will bring in from the transfer portal, with eight of them practicing this spring.

While so much has been made of the players leaving Temple, Carey chooses to look at the other side of the equation.

“I like our team makeup,” he said. “You know, the door swings both ways in the transfer portal.”

Besides determining his depth chart at all positions, Carey is looking to have the program rebound following a 1-6 season that was marked by several players missing time due to injury or COVID-related situations. The Owls’ final game with Cincinnati was canceled due to COVID issues with both teams.

Before last year, Temple had been an annual contender in the American Athletic Conference, having secured five consecutive bowl berths.

Carey didn’t mince words or shy away from blame when talking about last season.

“Simply put, we were in a worldwide pandemic and that worldwide pandemic caused a ripple effect of things that we had to deal with and we did not deal with them well and that starts with me,” Carey said. “I didn’t do a good enough job through that and that caused us to be 1-6, so you own it and you move on from it. I am not letting myself off the hook. I’m not letting this team off the hook, this staff, me, anybody. We went 1-6 and there is no way this is a 1-6 football team.”