TAMPA, Fla. — No. 22 Temple played its worst game of the season Saturday night in a 44-23 loss to the USF Bulls at Raymond James Stadium that put the Owls’ bid for a division title in jeopardy.
After Temple scored the game’s opening touchdown, USF ripped off four of its own plus a field goal to put the Owls in a 21-point hole at halftime, a deficit from which they would not recover.
With the loss Temple fell to 8-2 overall and 5-1 the American Athletic Conference. USF, meanwhile, improved to 6-4 overall and 4-2 in conference, picking up its fifth win in its last six games after a 1-3 start to the season.
A win would have guaranteed Temple a trip to the first-ever American championship game. Instead, the Owls forfeited a potential East Division tiebreaker to the Bulls, who sit in second place, one game back.
Here’s what went wrong in Tampa:
Turning point
USF tied the game, 7-7, at the end of the first quarter on a 68-yard touchdown pass from Quinton Flowers to Rodney Adams, who got behind both Temple corner Sean Chandler and safety Alex Wells.
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On the Owls’ very next play, quarterback P.J. Walker threw an interception on a failed bootleg pass into the flat, setting up a 5-yard touchdown run for his counterpart, Flowers.
The end result was back-to-back one-play drives for USF, which scored 14 points in 29 seconds. The Bulls added two more touchdowns and field goal to end the first half ahead, 31-10.
Temple lost the second quarter, 24-3.
Big Men on Campus
Flowers, Adams and sophomore running back Marlon Mack were more than Temple could handle.
Flowers accounted for three USF touchdowns, throwing two (one to Adams, the other to Mack) and running for another. The sophomore finished 15 of 22 for 230 yards passing to go along with another 90 yards and a score on the ground.
Adams posted career highs for both catches (seven) and yards (147).
Mack went for a season-high 230 yards rushing, averaging 11 yards per carry. He scored two touchdowns rushing and another receiving, finishing the game with 272 total yards.
Inside the box score
• The Temple defense gave up 296 yards and 31 points to USF in the first half. The Owls had previously allowed that many points only once this season. It was to SMU last week — over the course of the entire game.
• Temple running back Jahad Thomas broke the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the season with a 35-yard run in the first quarter. It marked the 13th time an Owl has rushed for 1,000 yards in a season and the first time since Montel Harris did it in 2012. Thomas on that same drive would score a touchdown on a five-yard pitch. With that touchdown, he became just the second player in program history to score 100 points in a season, joining Bernard Pierce.
• Thanks to his 252-yard performance, Walker went over the 2,000-yard passing mark for the third straight season. He is the first Temple quarterback to do that since Henry Burris (1994-1996).
• Walker and Thomas are the first Temple duo to throw for 2,000 yards and rush for 1,000 in a season since Brian Broomell and Mark Bright in 1979.
What’s next
Temple hosts No. 25 Memphis (8-2, 5-2) next Saturday in a crucial game at Lincoln Financial Field. The Tigers are coming off a key loss to undefeated No. 16 Houston and are now out of the race for the West Division crown. A loss to the Tigers might well cost Temple its own division title.