Report: Temple Owls are targeting a Big-12 coach to join their staff

The Temple Owls are trying to complete their coaching staff for the 2022 season, and they have their sights set on a veteran coordinator to join the ranks. According to Pete Thamel, sources close to the program have linked D.J Eliot as the team’s top candidate for their opening at defensive coordinator.

“Sources: Temple is targeting veteran defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot to be Stan Drayton’s new DC. Eliot has worked as the DC at Colorado, Kentucky and Kansas. He’s known for running simulated pressures, which are popular in the Baylor and Kentucky trees,” Thamel wrote on Twitter.

Eliot was most recently the defensive coordinator for the Kansas Jayhawks, from 2019 to 2020. The Oklahoma native has had several coaching positions throughout his 20 plus years of coaching. Most notably, he was a member of the 2002 Miami Hurricanes coaching staff that came up short in the BCS championship game against Ohio State. He also spent time at Florida State from 2010 to 2012 as a member of Jimbo Fisher’s coaching staff as the Seminoles defensive end coach. Since then, He has been a defensive coordinator add each of his next three stops, which Thamel listed above.

Temple is looking at another Big 12 staffer

Temple and its new football coach Stan Drayton are reportedly zeroing in on a candidate for director of player personnel: Texas’ Brandon Harris.

Bruce Feldman of The Athletic first reported that Temple is targeting Harris as a candidate for the Owls’ director of player personnel vacancy. Harris currently serves as the director of recruiting for the Texas Longhorns, a position to which he was appointed before the 2021 season.

Harris played college ball at LSU for three seasons, where he quarterbacked the Tigers before transferring to North Carolina for his final season of eligibility. A former four-star recruit, Harris’ playing career ended after his last college season in 2017; however, former Texas head coach Tom Herman recruited Harris when he first announced his intention to transfer, and the connection paid off after he graduated from North Carolina. Harris, shortly after graduation, accepted a job as an offensive analyst and assistant running backs coach.

In February of 2021, Texas lost a key staff member when Bryan Carrington, the Longhorns’ former director of recruiting, moved to USC to become an offensive quality control analyst. In his absence, Sarkisian promoted Harris to the program’s director of recruiting. Temple, which recently fired head coach Rod Carey and replaced him with Stan Drayton, would have Harris serve a slightly different role as the director of player personnel, according to Feldman.