It's a Victory Rewind of the sights, sound bites, stats, highlights and learning experiences from USF's 27-23 triumph against the Temple Owls, while beginning the lookahead to Friday night's road clash against the UTSA Roadrunners on ESPN2.

Conference Honors

Redshirt-freshman quarterback Byrum Brown was honored by the American Athletic Conference for the fifth time this season on Monday as he earned his fourth Weekly Honor recognition to go with one Offensive Player of the Week. Brown passed for 316 yards and a touchdown, marking his program record tying fourth 300-yard passing game of the season, and ran for another touchdown. He enters Game 11 just 373 yards shy of the Bulls season passing record.

 

The Big Play

USF was leading 20-10 — but slumbering — when defensive end Tramel Logan picked off a short pass from Temple quarterback E.J. Warner and rumbled into the end zone from 22 yards out, providing what became the clinching score with 3:09 remaining in the third quarter. It marked Logan's second defensive touchdown on the year.

Game Balls

* Logan, who became the first USF defensive player to score a pick-six touchdown since LB Antonio Grier's 69-yard play against Tulsa in 2021. Logan also had two tackles for a loss.

* WR Sean Atkins, who had nine receptions for a career-high 169 yards, while becoming USF's single-season leader for receptions (69).

* CB Aamaris Brown-Bunkley, who had a pair of leaping interceptions, two pass breakups and five tackles.

* WR Yusuf Terry, a Philadelphia native who earned the start against his hometown university, had a huge 44-yard catch on USF's second possession to set up John Cannon's 41-yard field goal.

Notable Numbers

1 — First career start for true-freshman left guard Cole Skinner.

2 — Number of USF players with two-interception games this season (Brown-Bunkley against Temple and S Logan Berryhill against Florida A&M).

4 — Number of 300-yard passing games by QB Byrum Brown this season. That equals the USF record of Quinton Flowers set in 2017.

5 — Number of consecutive games for Atkins to have seven (or more) receptions.

13 — Number of explosive plays (15 yards or greater) by USF. It was the fourth double-digit explosive-play game for the Bulls, who have 85 overall this season.

99 — Number of USF victories at Raymond James Stadium. The Bulls can make it an even 100 Ray-Jay wins in the Nov. 25 regular-season finale against Charlotte.

224 — USF's first-quarter yards against Temple.

A Win Is A Win Is A Win

Following USF's 27-23 victory against Temple on Saturday at Raymond James Stadium, the initial postgame remarks from head coach Alex Golesh set the tone.

"Man, (that was a) really, really ugly win,'' Golesh said. "But it's a win.''

And that's all that really matters.

The Bulls (5-5, 3-3 AAC) are one win away from becoming bowl eligible for the first time since 2018. Two games remain against a pair of first-year AAC programs — Friday night's trip to UTSA and the Nov. 25 regular-season finale against the Charlotte 49ers.

Golesh clearly knows the Bulls must play much better in order to win either of those games and complete a massive turnaround from the 1-11 season of 2022.

But the win against Temple, avenging last season's humiliating 54-28 defeat in Philadelphia, also had an array of big positives.

The Bulls started fast. Did they ever. After facing two-touchdown deficits in the first quarter (or early second quarter) during four of their last five games, the Bulls broke out 17-0 in the first quarter and that spurt provided the winning edge.

On its first drive, USF went 65 yards in five plays, getting a 40-yard bomb from Byrum Brown to Atkins on the first play from scrimmage, then finishing it with Brown's 7-yard touchdown run. Cannon's 41-yard field goal and Khafre Brown's 32-yard scoring reception were the other clinching moments as USF scored on each of its first three drives, including the lightning fast first score that occurred just 1:46 into the game.

Golesh loved the start.

The finish? Not so much.

"When you have (451) yards resulting in 27 points — and seven of those are defensive points — it's not good enough,'' Golesh said. "You look at our third-down conversions (6-for-17) and fourth-down conversions (1-for-3), those aren't good enough. You look at the penalties (10 for 70 yards) and many of those were false starts and misalignments that shouldn't be happening in Week 10 of the season and we've got to fix that.

"Defensively, I thought we had a resilient effort. We were facing a quarterback (Warner) who threw for (402 yards) last week against Navy, so that was a big challenge for us.''

Warner, son of the Pro Football Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, was active with 280 passing yards (on 24-for-47) with three touchdowns, but he was intercepted three times. The Owls also lost a fumble. Overall, the Owls were limited to 389 yards and 23 points against a USF defense that had been outscored 208-123 (while allowing 27 touchdowns) during a 1-3 skid.

"I thought how our guys started was incredible,'' Golesh said. "Offensively to go down and punch it in relatively quickly, then for the defense to answer the bell … huge. Now the next part of who we are has to be, all right, how do we keep our foot on the gas and keep it going?''

"Start fast and finish strong,'' Byrum Brown said. "Once we put those two together, we'll be a lot more of a force to be reckoned with.''

Record-Setting Performance

Atkins — or "38 Baby'' as his teammates call him — had another remarkable performance and this one put him in the USF record books.

Atkins, the 5-foot-9, 180-pound former walk-on, had nine catches for a career-high 169 yards. He has 69 receptions, breaking USF's single-season record of 67 (Rodney Adams, 2016). Atkins now has 808 receiving yards, giving him a great shot at breaking another USF single-season record (879 by Marquez Valdes-Scantling in 2017). With two games remaining (and possibly a bowl game), Atkins could become USF's first 1,000-yard receiver.

"Sean Atkins is a direct reflection of his process,'' Golesh said. "He's a young guy that I don't know if he was super confident (before the season). He had ability, but he wasn't confident enough in the fact that, man, I can actually be an every-down guy who is somebody we count on as a team, somebody who can go make plays on Saturdays.

"I asked him (Friday) how he felt and he's like, 'Elite, coach. I've never felt this healthy. I'm sleeping like I should. I've got the supplements I need. I'm eating like I should. Man, I'm ready!' And he's actually ready because his process at this point is elite. If I ask Sean if he can do this again next week, he'll say, 'I can, Coach. I definitely can.' ''

Atkins' record-breaking catch was a 25-yard reception in the fourth quarter. But his favorite moment was his final catch of the game. With the Bulls facing third-and-14 from the Temple 40-yard line — and the game's outcome still very much in doubt — Atkins hauled in a 16-yard catch just beyond the sticks with 3:22 remaining. That big play forced Temple to burn all of its timeouts and allowed USF to finish the game in kneel-down mode.

"It was definitely a special day for me,'' Atkins said. "Going out there and getting the win is all that matters, but doing what I can do to help the team and get that job done, it means a lot.

"Breaking records, that's not what you're striving for at the beginning of the season. I just want to win as many games as possible and stick to my path. That's what I've tried to do my whole career. Getting a record, I think, is just a testament to who I am, the work I've put in and the way my teammates have contributed to everything I do. It's a nice thing and you'll be happy about it for a little while, but then I need to go back to work. That's always the most important thing and it's how I got here.''

Tramel's Touchdown

Why would a defensive linemen spend every post-practice day working on the JUGS machine, catching pass after pass, working on his reaction time, getting his hands strong?

For Bulls defensive lineman Tramel Logan, the answer is simple. He wanted to be ready for his moment — the moment that actually occurred in Saturday's third quarter.

Warner attempted a pass to the left flat on second-and-7 from the Temple 25-yard line. But Logan was there, catching the ball firmly with two hands, then sailing into the end zone untouched from 22 yards out.

USF had a 27-10 lead.

"I've dropped a few (potential interceptions) in my career, so I've been telling my teammates all along that if I got my hands on another one, I was taking it to the house,'' said Logan, who scored on a 70-yard fumble return on Sept. 30 at Navy. "I could see it coming. I was prepared. Once I got my hands on it, I was gone.''

Golesh couldn't have been more happy.

"When we came in, Tramel Logan was a young man who was just trying to figure out what the heck was going on and what his role was on this team,'' Golesh said. "Over the past 11 months, he has gone from that to become one of our top leaders from a process standpoint.

"He told me, 'I've been on the JUGS machine like you've been preaching.' And we told the team that in the locker room. It's not something we make them do. But we recommend it. You never know when your opportunity is going to come. Tramel Logan was ready for his opportunity.''

Behind The Curtain

A few observations on game elements that didn't get the primary headlines:

* USF already was already seeing its offensive production slow, leading 17-10 late in the first half. Temple's 50-yard punt was downed at the USF 1-yard line with 3:23 remaining until halftime. Time to avoid mistakes and regroup?

Nope.

The Bulls attacked. A pair of passes (20 and 19 yards) to Atkins, along with the rushing of Kelley Joiner, got USF out of field-position danger. From the Temple 48-yard line, Brown found Naiem Simmons for 13 yards, then Jaden Alexis for 9. It allowed Cannon to drill a 44-yard field goal with five seconds before halftime, giving the Bulls a 20-10 advantage and needed confidence heading into the locker room.

* A pair of crushing Temple penalties allowed USF to finish its final game-clinching drive. On third-and-12 from the USF 23, Brown was flushed out of the pocket and headed for the sidelines, gaining just 2 yards and likely putting the Bulls into punt formation. But Temple defensive lineman Zymir Cobbs slammed Brown down after the play was clearly dead, drawing a personal-foul call. Later, on third-and-2 from the Temple 16, the Owls went offsides. From there, USF could knee down and run out the clock.

* When the season began, there were questions over whether Brown was ready to become an effective season-long quarterback. Those questions lasted maybe five minutes. Brown has produced an enormous season — to the point where his performance against Temple (316 yards passing, 18-for-26) barely draws notice. He's one of the nation's top quarterbacks, freshman or otherwise. The lingering negative remains the amount of hits his body has absorbed. Temple sacked Brown six times.

Next Up: UTSA

The Bulls now turn to a Friday night ESPN2 primetime opportunity against the UTSA Roadrunners (7-3, 6-0) at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

UTSA, a first-year AAC member that has averaged 39.7 points during its six-game winning streak, will play their next game after facing the Bulls at Tulane on Black Friday for an ABC-TV game that will have a lot to say about who plays in the AAC Championship Game. UTSA, Tulane and SMU have unbeaten AAC records heading into the regular season's final two weeks.

UTSA has won six straight games after beginning 1-3 — with the defeats coming against Houston (17-14), Army (37-29) and Tennessee (45-14).

The Roadrunners are paced by seventh-year quarterback Frank Harris, a left-hander who completes 64.3 percent of his passes for 14 touchdowns against six interceptions. Harris has 11,253 career passing yards (71st all-time in NCAA history, realistic chance to finish in the all-time top 50) and 88 touchdowns.

Harris' top targets are Joshua Cephus (67 catches, 12.0-yard average) and Tykee Ogle-Kellogg (28 catches, 17.2-yard average). The leading rusher is 5-foot-9, 220-pound sophomore Kevorian Barnes (606 yards), who didn't play in Saturday night's 34-14 win against Rice. Sophomore Rocko Griffin, making his first start, had 81 rushing yards on 12 carries.

The Roadrunners, who won two straight Conference USA championships before jumping to the AAC, are 17-0 at home against conference opponents and 22-3 overall at the Alamodome under fourth-year head coach Jeff Traylor.

UTSA began football in 2011 with head coach Larry Coker (the former Miami head coach who won a national title in 2001). The Roadrunners set NCAA records for the largest first-game attendance (56,743) and average home attendance (35,521) with a new football program.

–#GoBulls–