Temple’s football team is entering territory that perhaps no other team in program history has entered before.
The undefeated No. 22 Owls are ranked in the AP poll for the first time in 36 years and have a nationally televised showdown at Lincoln Financial Field with No. 11 Notre Dame looming next Saturday night.
But as far as the Owls are concerned, forget their 6-0 record. Forget the ranking. Forget Notre Dame. Forget any hype or outside noise around them.
The only thing on their minds is the stern short-week test facing them Thursday when they travel to East Carolina to battle the 4-3 Pirates.
The message being preached this week is that next game is the biggest game.
“People have been asking us about Notre Dame and all that stuff, but you’ve just got to shrug it off,” senior star linebacker Tyler Matakevich said. “You’ve just got to focus on ECU. That’s the only thing I’m focused on and I know all these guys are, too. You hear some young guys talking about a few weeks ahead, and then you hear the veterans yell at them. We can’t care about that. The only thing we care about is East Carolina.
“You’ve got to take it one game at a time and take it like it’s a championship game. That’s the mentality we have. Us veterans have been really trying to tell these other guys, ‘Hey, listen, this is the game right here. Don’t worry about anything else but this game.’”
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ECU’s three losses came at Florida, Navy and BYU, which have a combined record of 15-4. But the Pirates have a 2-1 record within the American Athletic Conference and sit just a game behind the undefeated Owls for first place in the conference’s East Division.
An ECU win Thursday would put the Pirates into first in the East with a remaining schedule that features teams with a combined 9-17 record. By contrast, the Owls’ remaining opponents have a combined 19-12 record.
So the implications of Thursday’s contest are clear.
That said, head coach Matt Rhule said he wants his players to go into the game with clear minds and focus on sticking to the way they’ve played all year.
“My point to them was this: You guys understand all these things going on, but if you make this game more important than any other game, then you’re not playing the way you should,” he said. “If the pleasure of playing outweighs the pressure, then you’re good.
“I’m proud of our players and the things they’ve done right so far. We have a chance to win any game when we play well. So my focus is on us playing well. Anything else is a distraction. But it’s a necessary distraction and a worthwhile distraction. So I try the best I can to focus them on just playing ECU.”
Temple knows all too well about the upset-hungry mindset ECU has right now.
After all, the then-No. 23 Pirates came north to Philadelphia last November and had their “Group-of-Five” bowl dreams shattered thanks to a 20-10 Temple upset.
Thursday is the perfect chance for the Pirates to serve up a plate of revenge by ruining the Owls’ perfect season and send them limping into the much-anticipated Notre Dame game.
The target is on the Owls’ backs, but they’re not worried about that.
Their only worry is keeping their strong play going Thursday.
“If it’s taken this long to get a target on our backs, it is what it is,” junior quarterback P.J. Walker said. “But we’re not really thinking about having a target or anything like that. We’re going to go out there and keep playing the way we’ve been playing all season.
“Each game is a big game for us and we’re going to play like it.”
