With bright lights gone, Temple has hard part of schedule on horizon

You could argue, based on Saturday's festivities at Lincoln Financial Field, that the home team looked like a top-25 team more than the visitors clearly belonged in the top 10.

There's cold logic, however, behind Sunday's latest national rankings. Notre Dame moves up a spot to No. 8 in the Associated Press poll. Temple drops from 21st to 23d. Results matter, and the Irish didn't back into the 24-20 victory over the Owls. You earn respect by winning the ones that almost get away, especially on the road.

Reducing what happened Saturday to a moral victory for Temple is absurd, but this was an obvious circumstance of a chance for a team to be proud in defeat. Temple coach Matt Rhule talked afterward about how if his players weren't sure how good they were, "now they know."

Late Saturday night, Rhule talked for a while, and a Temple official eventually gave a standard, "Two more questions." Rhule, still feeling the gut punch of a win for the ages being snatched away, said he'd keep talking.

"The more I talk, the better I feel," Rhule said.

The Owls were far from perfect inside the Linc. Notre Dame had more passing yards and more rushing yards, more of a capacity to turn a big play into a bigger play. Nevertheless, it was a toe-to-toe battle with time of possession close and Temple's defense coming up big in the red zone until the very end, when the best receiver the Owls will see said he had to "look through the lights" to gather in the football. Locating it, Will Fuller decided things.

"I just got past the corner and looked back," said Fuller, a Roman Catholic High graduate and Owl killer, after his game-winning touchdown catch. "I never saw the safety."

Notre Dame gets to stay in the periphery of the national title hunt with at least a chance to get to the center of it.

And Temple? What now?

The magical portion of their season dispensed with, the Owls return to the hard business of winning league games. On that front, Saturday was a good day. In the afternoon, a gathering of former Temple players watched a big screen set up in the back of an SUV in Lot K of the Linc, watching the fourth quarter of Navy and South Florida. They all can decipher standings and knew exactly how they wanted the game to go. A Navy victory would have given Temple some breathing room in the East Division of the American Athletic Conference.

That's how it went down, with Navy taking over late. The Owls will return to AAC action this week with a two-game lead in the East, four games remaining, and the tiebreakers looking good. The divisional setup works in Temple's favor. Memphis, Houston, and Navy are all unbeaten in the league and about to beat each other up in the West Division.

After several weeks of needing to avoid looking ahead, Temple's Friday night trip to Southern Methodist goes into the "avoid-letdown" category. The Mustangs are 0-4 in league play, 1-7 overall. Wins over SMU and the following week at USF would actually lock up a spot in the Dec. 5 conference title game, to be played at the site of the top overall school.

Temple's schedule isn't rolling downhill - the games after Notre Dame could be tougher than the ones before. Memphis, due at the Linc on Nov. 21, is ranked 15th in the AP poll and would keep rising if the Tigers can survive the next two weeks against Navy and Houston. And an AAC title game, whoever the opponent, would be a battle royale.

The 7-1 Owls will stay ranked as long as they keep winning AAC games but probably would drop out with the slightest stumble. That's the way things work toward the bottom of the top 25.

Temple fans, new and old, and even the players, get to keep their feet on the ground. If the Owls handle their first setback as well as they handled success, things should stay interesting away from the bright lights.

mjensen@phillynews.com

@jensenoffcampus