In the later portion of the Week 5 Saturday college football slate, the Temple Owls will face off with the South Florida Bulls. These programs have faced off 10 times in their history, with Temple holding a narrow 6-4 advantage. They last met in 2023, which resulted in a 27-23 win by South Florida.
Looking at the odds for this year’s matchup, South Florida enters as six-point favorites and holds -230 odds of winning outright on DraftKings Sportsbook. Temple holds +190 odds to win outright with the game total set at 48.5.
This article previews both teams and offers a pick for the Week 5 CFB matchup.
Temple vs. South Florida Preview
Temple Owls
The Temple Owls are off to a 1-3 start to the season, but are 3-1 against the spread. The overall takeaways have been largely encouraging for the team, but the results are extremely frustrating.
Temple opened the season with a convincing 38-14 victory over Rhode Island. They then momentarily scared Penn State, taking a first-half lead and scoring the first touchdown against the Nittany Lions this season, but it resulted in a 27-9 loss. They also blew a 42-28 lead against Toledo with just less than two minutes remaining to ultimately lose in overtime 49-48. The Owls covered the spread in each of these matchups. Most recently, Temple fell 21-17 against Army, a matchup in which they were tied up heading into the fourth quarter at home before failing to muster up enough offense and failing to cover the three-point spread.
The quarterback position has been a significant talking point surrounding the Owls’ outlook. Temple kicked off the season leaning on a two-quarterback system in which both Ajani Sheppard and Jaxon Smolik were taking snaps. Smolik suffered a foot injury against Toledo which held him out of last week’s matchup with Army, although Sheppard was giving the offense more of a boost when he was on the field anyway. Through the opening four games, Sheppard has completed 31 of his 58 pass attempts for 539 passing yards and five touchdowns without an interception, adding 147 rushing yards and a pair of scores on the ground. Smolik has completed 14 of his 23 pass attempts for 116 yards, one touchdown and one interception, adding 69 rushing yards. The expectation is for Sheppard to remain under center for this week’s matchup, but the quarterback position is not necessarily decided just yet.
With the quarterback production being a bit sporadic, the Owls have leaned on their rushing attack for the foundation of their offense. Keveun Mason has rushed for a team-high 340 rushing yards and two touchdowns, while Samuel Brown V has added 205 rushing yards and a pair of scores himself. Brown V also adds 105 yards and two receiving touchdowns. Colin Chase leads the wide receiver production with 196 yards and two scores, while Jayce Freeman is the lone other player to have notched over 100 yards through the air and has one additional touchdown on the season.
South Florida Bulls
The South Florida Bulls enter with a 4-0 overall record, but are 2-2 against the spread. They kicked off the season with a 19-9 victory over Florida International, but failed to cover the 14.5-point spread. The Bulls then edged out Army 28-24 as 3.5-point underdogs in the following game, then blew out Delaware State 59-17 the following week to cover the 37.5-point spread. Most recently, South Florida edged out Bowling Green 14-6, but failed to cover the 17.5-point spread.
Michael Van Buren Jr. stands in at quarterback and has completed 60 of his 91 pass attempts for 691 passing yards and three touchdowns without throwing an interception. He has also added 64 yards and a pair of touchdowns with his legs. D.J. Crowther leads the rushing attack with 325 yards and five touchdowns, while Jason Collins Jr. adds 142 rushing yards and a touchdown of his own. Bryson Rodgers and Joshua Porter headline the production at wide receiver with 389 receiving yards and three scores between them. Arhmad Branch is the lone other player with over 100 yards through the air.
Brian Hartline’s squad is averaging 30.0 points per game through their first four matchups, which ranks 77th out of the 138 qualifying D1 teams. They are averaging 3.0 rushing scores per game while throwing for just 0.8 on average. While their strength of opponents should be noted, South Florida is limiting teams to just 14.0 points per game, which ranks 21st in the country. Teams have had some success moving the football against them, but the Bulls deserve credit for holding strong in the red zone for the most part.
Temple vs. South Florida Pick, Best Bet
Sometimes there is a difference between being a good football team and knowing what it takes to win. Temple’s football program has some real momentum surrounding it in the second year with K.C. Keeler at the helm. The Owls went 5-7 last season, snapping a steak of four consecutive 3-9 seasons. There have been encouraging stretches of performance this season, but Temple has failed to execute at the necessary level in crunch time or complete a full 60 minutes of good football. They have paid the price for this and need to make changes to salvage their season.
My lean is toward South Florida taking care of business and covering the six-point spread. While Temple will compete hard and bring their best effort throughout, South Florida is perfectly capable of exploiting the vulnerabilities they have shown. However, the Bulls are coming off their least encouraging performance as they edged out Bowling Green 14-6 last week. This is a Bowling Green that went 4-8 last season, is 0-4 on the year, and lost their previous two games by a combined score of 111-14. South Florida fumbled twice and generated just 214 total yards against the inferior opponent. I largely expect for this to be a wake-up call for a team that did not play to their potential, but it is still a point to note.
Ultimately, I am backing the game-total to remain under 48.5 points in this matchup. There are two run-oriented teams with limitations in their passing games. Through the eight combined games these two teams have played, the expected starting quarterbacks have attempted just 149 total pass attempts. Both quarterbacks are threats with their legs, and I expect each side to lean on their rushing attack as the driving force of their offense throughout. Both these teams saw their game remain under the total last week, and each of the last four matchups between these two teams to occur on South Florida’s home turf have remained under.
Count one the South Florida defense to continue bending without breaking and for Temple to struggle in the red zone in a major way. On the other side of things, the Bulls are coming off a disappointing 14-point outing against Bowling Green and will be facing a Temple defense that is tough on the interior. Don’t expect South Florida to be capable of gashing the Owls for big runs in the way that their offense requires for a strong scoring output. This will be especially problematic in the red zone, with South Florida struggling to score through the air. Expect it to be a struggle to score for both sides in this matchup and for this game total to be too lofty considering the context of these two teams and their run-first styles of play.
