Bulls’ Slow Start, Offensive Woes Lead to First Loss of Hartline Era
USF fell to Temple 17-13 on Saturday night.
The South Florida Bulls (4-1) fell 17-13 to the Temple Owls (2-3) on Saturday night at Raymond James Stadium.
It was a sobering loss for Brian Hartline and USF in his first season as a head coach.
“I think everything happens for a reason. Whatever we need, we’re going to experience. The issues were always there, and they’re finally starting to kick us in the butt because we’re not getting them fixed,” a frustrated Hartline said after the game.
The butt-kicker for USF on Saturday night was its anemic offensive performance.
The Bulls scored a season-low 13 points against Temple. They could only muster three points in the first half. This season, USF is averaging 18.5 points per game against FBS foes. The Bulls are scoring just four points per first half in those games.
“We are our own worst enemy on the field,” Hartline said after the game. “We’ve got to do a better job of complimenting each other and a better job of starting fast on offense to make sure we help the defense, and not putting ourselves in a spot where we have to wake up on offense and move the football.”
USF had a season-high eight penalties on Saturday night. Temple outrushed the Bulls 182-114 in the game. The Bulls only mustered 3.4 yards per carry compared to Temple’s 5.1 in the game.
Junior USF quarterback Michael Van Buren Jr. completed 17 of his 32 passing attempts for 205 yards. It was Van Buren Jr.’s lowest completion percentage in a game since last season, when he was playing for LSU in a road game against Alabama.
On the other side, senior Temple quarterback Ajani Sheppard passed for 92 yards and a touchdown and added 87 rushing yards and a touchdown against the Bulls. Senior running back Hunter Smith had 11 carries for 69 yards.
The Owls took the lead with 3:08 left in the game on Sheppard’s 34-yard scamper to the end zone. The score capped a 10-play, 96-yard touchdown drive that took 5:24.
“When you have the opportunity to continue to pin them down, you have to finish the job,” USF junior linebacker Grayson “Pup” Howard said after the game. “We have to do a better job of finishing drives.”
Temple had blown fourth-quarter leads in each of the past two weeks leading up to the game, but on Saturday night in Tampa, the Owls flipped the script on the Bulls.
USF had two cracks at responding to the Owls’ go-ahead touchdown run. They failed both times, first turning the ball over on downs on a five-play, 17-yard drive. Then the Bulls got the ball back with 51 seconds left but ran out of time in a sequence that could only be described as discombobulated.
The Bulls defense held Temple to a season-low 274 total yards on Saturday. They have held their opponents under 20 points in four of their five games this season.
The biggest play for USF’s defense on Saturday night came in the third quarter when Sheppard seemed destined for a touchdown run. Instead, sophomore linebacker Zavier Hamilton and junior cornerback Amarion Fortenberry sandwiched him with violent tackles, jarring the ball loose. The loose ball was then kicked around before being recovered by senior linebacker C.J. Hicks.
Hicks added seven tackles to go along with the recovery. Junior linebacker Grayson “Pup” Howard led the team with nine tackles and added a tackle for loss against the Owls.
The Bulls finished the game with four tackles for loss and two sacks. Senior defensive linemen Asani Redwood and Michael Williams II had one sack apiece.
USF won’t have much time to sulk in the first loss of Hartline’s tenure, with its next game coming five days after Saturday’s loss.
“We don’t have much time, so it’s not really much to discuss. We’ll identify the things we did positively and negatively, and then we’ll look to move on pretty quick,” Hartline said about the team’s approach after the loss on a short week of game preparation.
That short week will culminate with USF taking a trip to the Alamodome to play the 4-1 UTSA Roadrunners on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN.