AAC action comes to Friday night in Week 13 as the 3-7 Temple Owls travel to the Alamodome to take on the 5-5 UTSA Roadrunners with bowl eligibility on the line for the home team.
Who will prevail? Our Temple vs. UTSA prediction dives into all the details—from the latest betting odds to what’s at stake for both programs as they navigate the final stretch of the 2024 college football season.
Temple vs. USTA Betting Preview
All Temple vs. UTSA odds are from DraftKings Sportsbook and are correct as of Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. The CFN spread comes from College Football Network’s Football Playoff Meter.
- CFN FPM Spread
UTSA -10 - Spread
UTSA -16.5 - Moneyline
UTSA -750, Temple +525 - Over/Under
56 points - Game time
7 p.m. ET - Location
Alamodome | San Antonio, TX - Predicted Weather at Kick
51 degrees, clear, 6 mph winds - How to Watch
ESPN2
Last year saw the first-ever matchup between the two teams following the Roadrunners’ transition to the AAC. UTSA clipped the Owls’ wings with a 49-34 win in Philadelphia, but the line for this game demonstrates the folly of expecting such a high-scoring affair this time around. Yet, seven of UTSA’s 10 games and half of Temple’s games in 2024 have covered the points line.
MORE: Simulate the College Football Season with CFN’s College Football Playoff Predictor
UTSA is a comfortable favorite on Friday night, and while that hasn’t always been the best situation for the Roadrunners this year, they should be able to get their sixth win of the year. However, they’ve not been as good at covering the spread (4-6) as Temple (5-5) has. The CFN FPM spread is almost a full score different from DraftKings, and our prediction falls between them.
Temple’s Winning Probability
According to the CFN FPM, Temple has just a 22.6% chance of beating UTSA on Friday night. The Owls have endured a torrid season, resulting in the replacement of Stan Drayton as their head coach, and our metric predicts a difficult start for interim HC Everett Withers.
Here are the win probabilities for the final two games of the Temple football season:
- at UTSA: 22.6%
- vs. North Texas: 36.4%
If those win probabilities were to hold true, the Owls would end the year with a 3-9 record, including a 2-6 AAC campaign. That would actually be their best in-conference record since 2019, but Temple will have gone 3-9 in each of their last four seasons.
UTSA’s Winning Probability
Conversely, UTSA has a 77.4% chance of beating the Owls on Friday night. Our metric projected the Roadrunners’ win last time out, making them a greater favorite than the official odds. However, they’ve been a difficult team to predict this fall.
Here are the win probabilities for the final two games of the UTSA football season:
- vs. Temple: 77.4%
- at Army: 17%
If those win probabilities were to hold true, the Roadrunners would end the year with a 6-6 record, including a 4-4 AAC campaign. While not a vintage year for a program that has elevated expectations of itself in recent years, it would mark a fifth-successive season with bowl eligibility under Jeff Traylor.
Prediction for Temple vs. UTSA
Temple had been a consistent winning force in the AAC in the mid-late 2010s, with Matt Rhule making the Owls a top-25 team in the country. However, recent seasons haven’t been kind to the program, and head coach Drayton was fired after a narrow win over the equally troubled Florida Atlantic Owls. Can they get a win for interim Withers as the program evaluates a successor?
They face a UTSA team that has been a shadow of its former self in the post-Frank Harris era. The Roadrunners have lost more conference games this season than in the last three seasons combined and need a win to ensure bowl eligibility after being a preseason contender to lift the conference crown. So, who holds the advantage, and where will the critical battles unfold?
Inconsistency has been the problem for the Roadrunners this fall. The offense has lacked the creative leadership that defined the program during the Harris era. Owen McCown has been serviceable, throwing for 2,743 yards and 22 touchdowns, but he doesn’t add the same dynamic threat with his legs, resulting in a lack of a dangerous dual-threat in the red zone.
However, when the offense is on form, they’re every inch as productive as Roadrunners’ teams of previous years. They’re at their most dangerous when utilizing running backs Robert Henry and Kevorian Barnes, who should have a field day against a Temple rushing defense that has allowed the third-most rushing scores (26) and second-most yards per carry in the AAC in 2024.
The Owls have given up 35 points per game this year, ranking 121st of the 134 FBS programs despite linebacker D.J. Woodbury leading the conference in solo tackles. The numbers are skewed by heavy losses to the Oklahoma Sooners, Army Black Knights, East Carolina Pirates, and Tulane Green Wave, but they’ve simply lacked the intensity when facing high-powered offenses this year.
While the Roadrunners have been similarly abysmal from a defensive standpoint this year (allowing 32.0 points per game), Temple simply doesn’t have the offense to take advantage. Wide receiver Dante Wright has been a bright spot, and he should grab at least one touchdown, but when your kicker has 28.8% of your total points, you know that there’s an issue there.
Prediction: Temple 23, UTSA 34
College Football Network has you covered with the latest from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and every Group of Five conference and FBS Independent program.