In arguably the most winnable FBS game on the schedule for South Florida, the Temple Owls took some of the current Philadelphia magic as they knocked off USF, 54-28.
It started out the way fans would’ve hoped it should against Temple, but many mistakes and some non-complimentary football led to this team’s demise, resulting in yet another loss on both USF’s and Jeff Scott’s record.
There is now a lot of “soul searching” that is going to be done by this team and by Jeff Scott, as he said in his quick postgame press conference, as the Bulls have much more work that needs to be corrected if they want to grab one more win on the year.
Game Recap
The Bulls looked out of sync late, something that has become quite a norm for this team this season: falling behind late in games.
This game especially showed that, with the team reverting to some of their freshman talents. With these freshman coming in, we can see what the future may have in store for this team going forward.
Offensively, Katravis Marsh threw for three touchdowns, and Brian Battie ran for almost 130 yards on the ground, but the defense struggled and was the real cause for concern.
Temple came into the game scoring only 15 points per game, but managed to score over 50 points, despite being a quite stagnant offense. This is definitely a cause for concern heading into the remainder of the season, where USF will face much more talented offenses.
Final Thoughts
Overall, there isn’t much to say.
I think this game took out any life that this team had. Losing this game is like taking the heart out. There isn’t anything to play for other than just winning out and maybe doing what at this point looks like the unthinkable: winning in what may be the final war on I-4.
Beyond that, this Bulls team doesn’t just have “some soul searching” to do in the next 24 hours but possibly some “coach searching” as well.
Many questions are now on Jeff Scott about whether he should be fired before the next upcoming contest, and it may have come to this point, but do you get rid of a coach mid-season?
There are many serious questions to ask about this team heading into what should be an interesting contest versus SMU on Salute to Service day.