Temple is eager to put its past run of losing football seasons to bed. In some cases, literally.

It isn’t uncommon for athletes to say that they eat, sleep and breathe the sport they are playing. Many hope to perfect their craft and reach the next level in their game.

Evan Simon takes it one step further.

The Temple quarterback has spent the last two weeks sleeping on an air mattress in Edberg-Olson Hall’s defensive line meeting room. He revealed this during the football program’s annual media day on Wednesday, which sent the reporters in the room into laughter, since they assumed he was joking.

He wasn’t.

“I eat, sleep, [and] breathe football,” Simon said. “Someone moved my air mattress. I sleep in here every night. [I’m] really committed to turning this program around. I feel like if I’m on that field, that’ll happen.”

Media day was just nine days before the Owls’ season opener against Massachusetts on Aug. 30 (3:30 p.m., ESPN+). Temple closed training camp the night before, and has now gone into preparation mode for the Minutemen.

But there still was some time for some fun. The Owls announced their five single digits during a team meeting Wednesday, before the freshmen sang Temple’s fight song, accompanied by the marching band.

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“Broke camp yesterday and had some fun with the fellas,” head coach K.C. Keeler said jokingly. “We had a trivia night. We announced who the leadership council was going to be for the season. We did a single-digit review, and then we also had the freshmen come in and do the fight song for us.”

Keeler introduced a new system for the single-digit process. He strayed from past years, in which players felt like it was a popularity contest. Keeler conducted a player vote to determine who would earn the honor. From there, around 20 players were selected, and to cut down the list, coaches spoke to staff members to get perspective of the player.

When the dust settled, Simon, wide receiver Colin Chase, punter Dante Atton, and defensive linemen Allan Haye and Sekou Kromah made the cut. While the five will start the season with the honor, Keeler has maintained an interest in adding to the list as the weeks go on.

“We made sure that everyone understood, since it was a distraction last year. We can’t have it be a distraction this year,” Keeler said. “It was going to be a very small group.”

While it was an expectation for players such as Kromah and Simon to don a single digit this season, it came as a shock for Atton and Chase. Atton is the first specialist to earn one, and Chase was selected after joining the team just three months ago.

“So Coach Keeler pulled me into his office around 2:30 and filled me in on the news. [He] told me not to tell anyone,” Atton said. “I called my mom. She was very excited. I was excited. It’s been a tough year, so hearing the news and hard work has paid off in a way.”

Chase got the nod after the players voted heavily in his favor. He is the only player who transferred to Temple this offseason to receive one after two transfers earned single digits last season in Andreas Keaton and Latrell Jean.

While the leadership of the team was selected, a starting quarterback has not been. Keeler said Monday that he will wait to name a starter between Simon and Gevani McCoy, and Thursday’s festivities only cemented that.

» READ MORE: Temple starts preparations for its season opener with the QB position still in question

“There are two different types of competitions, and I’ve seen it and been a part of the good one,” Simon said. “There’s no toxicity within it. We just make each other better with encouragement [or] coaching one another up.

Keeler has spent the nine months since his hiring attempting to give the culture a face-lift.

While he has embraced Temple’s roots, he has added some twists. The payoff will be if he can turn around the Owls’ five consecutive losing seasons.

“I walked into a place that had history, and I’m leaning into that,” Keeler said. “The single digit is a great example. Temple TUFF is a great example. I often talk about the 198 former players who made the NFL rosters. The 81 draft choices, the four first-round picks, and the Heisman Trophy runner-up [in former running back, Paul Palmer, a runner-up to Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde in 1986]. There’s a culture that I developed, but I developed it with a team.”

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