Stan Drayton addresses ‘really tough’ Temple coaching staff turnover, vacant coordinator job

In his first statement since losing three coaches, Drayton said he took the losses hard: “It’s hard for me not to take it personally because I truly do like the guys that I bring into this program.”

Temple head coach Stan Drayton during a game against East Carolina at Lincoln Financial Field in 2022.Read moreHeather Khalifa / Staff Photographer

by Cayden Steele

Published March 15, 2023, 1:16 p.m. ET

College football coaches deal with constant staff turnover and have to make tough decisions.

Temple coach Stan Drayton is no different. He had three coaches depart from his staff this offseason, including former defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach D.J. Eliot, who was hired as the new Eagles linebackers coach on Thursday.

Eliot led the American Athletic Conference’s seventh-ranked defense, which gave up 29.3 points per game. Former cornerbacks coach Jules Montinar was also hired as East Carolina defensive passing game coordinator and cornerbacks coach. Additionally, Preston Brown did not return as running backs coach.

“Really tough,” Drayton said about the changes at Tuesday’s media availability. “It’s hard for me not to take it personally because I truly do like the guys that I bring into this program. These guys have done a phenomenal job with developing our kids and pouring into our young men.

“When I see our young men hurt when coaches leave, that means we are doing something right. It’s tough, especially this late, getting a defensive coordinator. I’m getting ready for practice pretty soon here. I don’t have a coordinator in place. That’s pretty tough.”

Temple replaced Brown and Montinar with experienced coaches. New cornerbacks coach Dominique Bowman was a defensive assistant at Arkansas and running backs coach Tyree Foreman did the same job at Towson.

Drayton’s next step is to hire a defensive coordinator. Eliot contributed to the development of outside linebacker Layton Jordan and inside linebacker Jordan Magee, among other defensive standouts.

Drayton has coached for 28 years and made connections at each stop.

“I’ve made a lot of friends, and a lot of people know what I am looking for, the type of coaches that I am looking for,” Drayton said. “When these jobs come up, there are a plethora of names that are interested in coming to Temple.”

Drayton expects to fill out this position as soon as possible.

Temple will target a candidate who runs a scheme similar to Eliot’s to avoid making a significant change to its philosophy.

“It’s not fair to the kids this deep into spring to sit there and try to wholesale change a system that we’re starting to play faster [in],” Drayton said. “And there were times when that system was really good for us a year ago. We don’t feel like there were a whole lot of things broken. We recruited for that system, and we feel like we upgraded at a lot of positions within that system.

“The guy who takes this job has either got to have a history of being in a system like that or is willing to take this job without doing any type of wholesale change to terminology or anything like that, so it’s very specific for that position for the sake of the kids.”