Report: Temple targeting Texas' director of recruiting

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.

Like Harris, Drayton had strong roots at the University of Texas before his hiring at Templs, perhaps prompting the former Longhorn coach to pluck another member off Sarkisian’s staff. Drayton came to Temple straight from his role as the Texas Longhorns’ associate head coach and run game coordinator, positions he served for both Herman (2017-2020) and Sarkisian (2021). In his time with Texas, Drayton helped guide three key running backs in Bijan Robinson, Roschon Johnson and Keaontay Ingram. He also helped coach Robinson to a program-best season in 2020, when he set the school record averaging 8.2 yards per rushing attempt.