Temple

Kurt Warner Says Transferring Son Needed Change “As Much Off the Field as On”

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 27th, 2023 · 9:45 AM EST

---

This tweet is a couple of days old, but it flew under the radar on Christmas Eve and I think it’s worth sharing:

There were a variety of reasons – with one of them being he wanted to explore the possibilities that may have been out there… but at the end of the day he needed a change & it was as much off the field as on.

— Kurt Warner (@kurt13warner) December 24, 2023

That’s Temple guy Harry Mayes asking Kurt Warner why his son E.J. transferred to Rice. We did a short writeup on the site, noting that Rice plays in the same conference and is only a marginally better program than Temple in 2023. It would have been one thing if E.J. left North Broad for Clemson, but he didn’t, he made a lateral-ish move, and that’s a kick in the nuts for Owls fans and alumni.

Notable is that Rice is a great academic school on a much nicer campus. Some people speculated that this was a driving factor in the decision, and so it’s curious to see Kurt talk specifically about his son needing a change “as much off the field as on.” It’s not like that’s a throwaway line in a much longer explanation. Kurt explicitly notes that an off-field change was just as important as an on-field change. Of course, he’s not coming out directly and saying “My son transferred because the Temple campus sucks ass and so does Philly.” It could mean that the big city just wasn’t EJ’s vibe, or he never felt settled in the northeast, etc. But the way Kurt left the “off the field” dangling, you’d understand why people might assume the former.

Anyway, here’s where EJ is gonna be playing ball in 2024. It’s an older photo, but you get the point:

Michael Vergason Landscape Architects