A 'disappointed but encouraged' Evan Simon steers Temple toward Charlotte

After Temple’s 32-31 loss to Navy Saturday evening, quarterback Evan Simon entered the postgame press conference with a calm – but visibly downcast – demeanor.

“We have 24 hours,” Simon said, “but it might take longer than that to get over this game.” 

That’s understandable. 

Simon, who led Temple on an 11-play, 75-yard drive that allowed the Owls to take a 31-24 lead with 1 minute, 16 seconds left to play, threw for a career-high 345 yards and completed 25 of his 36 passes. With the exception of losing a fumble in taking a first-half sack, Simon played a near-flawless game. 

But the frustration of losing a lead and eventually the game in the game’s final minute and not having any timeouts to work with when the Owls got the ball back with 39 seconds left Simon with a lot to digest. 

“I’m disappointed,” Simon said, “but very encouraged at the same time.”

That’s also understandable.

There were some reasons to be encouraged. Simon spread the ball around to seven different receivers, with Kajiya Hollowayne’s career-best totals of nine catches for 146 yards leading the way. Simon has now thrown for 1,149 yards, 13 touchdowns and 0 interceptions through Temple’s first six games while completing 61.2% of his passes. The 6-foot-3, 205-pound redshirt senior is just two touchdown passes and 883 yards shy of his season totals from a year ago. 

The game was certainly eventful, with the Owls starting hot in the first half, leading the Midshipmen 17–7 going into halftime. A large part of the strong start could be attributed to the play of Simon, who ended the first half with 235 passing yards, including a 21-yard rush up the middle on a broken play to move the Owls into the red zone midway through the first quarter. 

He later capped that drive with a quarterback keeper up the middle for a two-yard touchdown run.

“It starts from the top down,” Simon said. “With (Temple head) Coach (K.C.) Keeler and his troops with the coaching staff, I thought they did a phenomenal job. We did a great job preparing.”

Simon continued his strong play into the second half, adding another 110 yards to his total as well as throwing a pass to the corner of the end zone to redshirt junior wide receiver JoJo Bermudez for a 28-yard touchdown.

Just as Keeler will be scrutinized for his decision to not take more time off the clock before Jay Ducker’s 1-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter and just as Temple’s defense will be shaking its head as it thinks of letting Navy quarterback Blake Horvath run untouched on a 51-yard touchdown scamper that set up the game-winning, two-point conversion, Simon said the offense will share some blame in the loss, too. 

“You guys don’t know it,” Simon said, “but we know there’s some very ticky-tacky things that we could have done today to prevent them from getting a ball back and stuff like that.”

Simon is also encouraged by the growth of Hollowayne, who caught his fade-route throw for 22 yards, even with Navy cornerback Ira Oniha grabbing his facemask and being called for defensive pass interference. That penalty placed the Owls at the 1-yard line, where Ducker later ran the ball in to put Temple up seven with 1:16 on the clock.

“Before I talk about him in football, he’s a fantastic person, very fun to be around,” Simon said. “And football-wise, he’s really getting better, day in and day out. Big dude (who can) go out and make a play, and just, again, a fantastic person.”

On that drive, Keeler had the option of taking two knees with Simon to force Navy to burn its remaining timeouts, which would have allowed Temple to kick an easy field goal from inside the Midshipmen’s 10-yard line. However, they decided to run with Ducker for a touchdown on the next play, allowing Navy to drive down the field with two timeouts and more than a minute to go. 

Following Horvath’s 51-yard touchdown run and a successful two-point conversion pass to running back Alex Tecza, the Midshipmen were suddenly holding a 32-31 lead with 39 seconds left in the game. Temple, meanwhile, was left stunned and without a timeout. 

When asked about his coach’s decision to not run out more clock, Simon said, 

“At the end of the day, we trust the staff,” Simon said. “We were in the huddle and we’re saying, ‘We’re going to take a shot, we’re going to go win this game,’ and we made it count. And… ball game.”

The Owls had one last chance to win, getting the ball at their own 25-yard line and no timeouts with 39 seconds to play. Simon connected on all four of his throws, but all were caught and downed inbounds, which prevented the Owls from stopping the clock. That forced Simon to attempt a Hail Mary pass down the middle that fell incomplete and well short of the end zone to end the game.

“I was just yelling, Hail Mary, because we had no timeouts,” Simon recalled. “They add one second on the clock, and they were going to snap it on the whistle. Just a last ditch effort.”

Asked if he had a message for the fans in terms of what they can expect from the team for the rest of the regular season, Simon allowed himself a slight smile. 

The Owls are 3-3 heading into next Saturday’s game at 1-5 Charlotte and can become bowl-eligible for the first time since 2019 if they can win three of their last six games. 

“Yeah,” Simon began before a long pause. “This program is turning. I will say that. You look at the way we played Navy last year and to this year, and props to Navy. But like I said, I’m disappointed about tonight. But boy, I’d be encouraged, because the tide is turning with this program and just those little details, we’re going to dial in. And don’t lose faith, I swear to you.”