Temple Football Likely To Clinch AAC East Title At South Florida With Favorable Matchups

By Mike Gibson
Jahad Thomas, Temple football,
Getty Images

Matchups are supposed to mean more to the Temple basketball Owls, who open Friday (7 p.m., CBS Sports Network) against preseason No. 1 North Carolina, than the Temple football Owls, who will also be that network’s prime time show on Saturday night.

The basketball ones probably do not favor the Owls, but an objective view of the football ones certainly do at 5-4 South Florida, also at 7 p.m. on the same network at Raymond James Stadium.  The Owls, like USF, are a running team that can pass well off of play action. Unlike USF, though, the Owls have a dominating defense capable of shutting down the best running backs in the nation.

With this win, the Owls clinch the AAC Eastern Division title and all indications are they will do just that. The Owls have already played three better teams than USF and have beaten two of them.

USF sophomore Marlon Mack is certainly a solid tailback, but he’s not in the same league with Notre Dame’s C.J. Prosise. The 8-1 Owls held Prosise (pronounced PRO-SIZE) to just 46 yards on 12 carries. USF’s Quinton Flowers is a good quarterback, but he does not have the pedigree of Notre Dame Heisman Trophy candidate DeShone Kizer.

South Florida is good, but it would seem in many areas their strengths are more than negated on the other side of the ball by Temple’s strengths. If Temple can stop Prosise, they can certainly stop Mack and force the Bulls to throw the ball, where they will have to face a defensive pass rush that sacked Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg 10 times. Temple has the only player in America with two interceptions for touchdowns in Sean Chandler, and in Tavon Young, they arguably have a better corner manning the other side. On offense, the Owls just dropped 60 points on SMU and have a healthy Jahad Thomas at tailback, who is only 30 yards shy of 1,000 yards this season.

Both teams have beaten SMU as Temple went on the road and won, 60-40 and USF won at home, 38-14. Both have also won at East Carolina — Temple, 24-14 and USF, 22-17. Those have been the only two common opponents.

The fine line the Owls will have to walk on Saturday is a psychological one. They know that this game is for a championship, albeit an AAC East one, and they have never entered a game with that kind of mindset. On the other hand, they have played in what the newspapers called “the biggest game in Temple football history” (Notre Dame) and acquitted themselves well in a 24-20 last-minute loss. They went into the opener against Penn State not having beaten that in-state foe in 74 years, yet they lifted the 800-pound, 74-year-old Gorilla off their backs and piggybacked that by winning a more meaningful game the next week at Cincinnati, jumping out to a 34-12 fourth-quarter lead. All three opponents have better resumes than USF.

They’ve walked similar lines like a master tight rope artist and still managed to get to the other side. There is no reason to believe they are going to fall this time, either.

Mike Gibson is a featured writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @papreps , “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.

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