On Thursday night, the South Florida Bulls beat the Temple Owls 43-7. USF came into the game as a 20 point favorite, so this wasn’t exactly a huge surprise. However, the overall performance by Temple was hilariously terrible, which you may not have expected given that the team won the American last season.
On the evening, Temple was outgained 408-85. Yep – the Owls couldn’t even amass 100 total yards of offense. They were thoroughly dominated on the ground, as the Bulls put up 312 rushing yards compared to uh…-4 for Temple. 33 rushes for -4 yards? That takes some serious skill.
The Owls also turned the ball over six times. However, the turnover battle was a crucial part of the evening for Temple – their seven points came thanks to a sack and a fumble that was returned for a touchdown.
That being said, you never want to commit nearly as many turnovers (six) as first downs achieved (seven). And it shouldn’t have even been that positive – the Owls picked up two first downs on their final drive of the night before being forced to punt the ball back to the Bulls (with only 2:59 left…at midfield….).
The stage for a disastrous evening was really set in the first quarter, when Temple tried a fake field goal…to hilarious results.
And you thought things were going bad for former Temple head coach Matt Rhule down at Baylor.
Through four weeks of the season, I’m really not sure what we can make of Temple – they’ve gotten absolutely pasted by the only two good teams they’ve faced (USF and Notre Dame), and edged by both UMass and Villanova (at home). Can they get to six wins and bowl eligibility? East Carolina and UConn in back to back weeks in October look like easily winnable games, but the rest of the schedule (aside from maybe Army and Tulsa) looks quite tricky.
Hopefully for the Owls and their fans, the rest of the season only goes up from Thursday’s wretched performance.
