Is Temple football ready for what awaits next at South Florida?

The Temple football coaches and players don't appear to be outwardly concerned about their last two tight games, but after winning last season's American Athletic Conference title and two straight Eastern Division championships, the bar should be high.

After the Owls 29-21 win Friday at Lincoln Financial Field against a now 0-4 Massachusetts team, coach Geoff Collins talked about showing character for the second week in a row while gutting out a tough game.

All this is true, but the fact that the Owls haven't been able to put away two double-digit underdogs has to be concerning.

One of the reasons is because of what comes next.

Temple (2-1) begins its conference schedule with Thursday's game at South Florida.

After a 49-16 opening loss at Notre Dame, Temple has beaten Villanova, 16-13 on a last-minute field goal and on Friday saw UMass fight to the very end.

"Temple universally has been in tight games, close situations, that is who we are and we are going to fight until the end," Collins said. "We will try to get the knockout boom in the fourth quarter, but if it doesn't happen, that is OK."

It really isn't OK against teams the Owls are supposed to beat at home, but Collins respectfully disagrees.

"When the critical situations happen, we're going to rise to the occasion and it happened again tonight and I was proud of the way they responded," he said late Friday evening.

That is all good, but Temple could have used a convincing win in preparing for USF, which is 3-0, ranked No. 22 and coming off Friday's 47-23 win over visiting Illinois. The game wasn't really that close since USF led 37-9 after three quarters.

It's possible that USF will not only go undefeated in the AAC, but unbeaten for the regular season.

Last year Temple upset the Bulls, 46-30 at the Linc and that was the difference in the conference since both teams finished 7-1. Temple was awarded the East Division championship based on its win over the Bulls.

One of the reasons Temple hasn't been able to put teams away is that opponents are passing at will on the Owls.

In the opener, Notre Dame's Brandon Wimbush threw for 184 yards, but he didn't need to throw too much since the Fighting Irish gained 422 yards on the ground.

In the last two weeks, Temple's run defense has been strong, but the Owls also weren't facing the caliber of backs or offensive line they saw against Notre Dame.

The pass defense has been another story.

The Owls allowed 382 passing yards against Villanova and 377 yards against UMass. The UMass total was accomplished even though Minuteman quarterback Andrew Ford was running for his life and the Owls recorded nine sacks.

Now Temple faces a fringe Heisman candidate in USF quarterback Quinton Flowers, who threw for 280 yards and four touchdowns against Illinois and for good measure, ran for 106 and another score.

In other words, Temple won't be afforded the luxury of slipping on pass defense this week, because like Notre Dame, USF can hurt teams in multiple ways. (The Bulls had three, 100-yard rushers against Illinois. As a side note, Notre Dame had three 100-yard rushers against Temple).

That's not to say Temple won't be confident facing USF. It's just that sometimes a team has to show a killer instinct, especially against an underdog.

Temple has done just enough to win the past two weeks. Much more will be needed against a USF team that will present the same type of problems Temple saw from its opening opponent this year.