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Temple can still achieve its goals

The 23rd-ranked Owls can get to a significant bowl game by winning their remaining games and the AAC title.

TEMPLE RUNNING BACK Jahad Thomas was correct when he said before Saturday's massive game against Notre Dame that "win or lose," one game would not define the Owls' season.

Since the Owls dropped a 24-20 heartbreaker to the then-ninth-ranked Irish, it is imperative that they double down on Thomas' thought and understand that almost nothing was lost in the grand scheme of what they can still achieve.

OK, if you want to play ultimate fantasy island adventure, the loss eliminates Temple (7-1) from the four-team College Football Playoff race before the first official rankings come out on Tuesday.

The Owls, now ranked No. 23, had to have an undefeated season to have even an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weenie chance of being one of the four teams that will play in the national championship tournament.

However, that was never a realistic consideration. As a member of the American Athletic Conference, which is part of the outsider "Group of Five" conferences, Temple needed to go undefeated and have no more than three teams from the "Power Five" conferences have fewer than two losses to get remote consideration.

That is just the way this thing is set up.

Due to politics, finances and influence, no team from the Group of Five (AAC, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West or Sun Belt) will make the four-team tournament unless the most extreme convergence of circumstances occur.

No, the bone thrown to the Group of Five was the automatic bid into a prestigious and lucrative "New Year's Six Bowl" for its highest-ranked champion.

This year, that invitation will be to the Fiesta or Peach Bowl.

When I climbed aboard the Temple bandwagon after the Owls beat Cincinnati, the end of the journey was always Atlanta for the Peach or Glendale, Ariz., for the Fiesta.

The loss to Notre Dame is not a blown tire in that trip.

As big as the game was cosmetically, it was almost irrelevant to Temple's path to the Peach or Fiesta, and that would be the same if the Owls had beaten the Irish.

Once the Owls reached 7-0, the Notre Dame game was just there - ready to be hyped, put on prime time and joined by ESPN's "College GameDay,'' and deservedly so.

It was great exposure for Temple and the team acquitted itself well.

Still, if you follow this complicated NY6 bowl process, you knew that this Friday's game at SMU would be more crucial to Temple than Notre Dame.

Remember, the criteria for that automatic bid is that the recipient must be the highest-ranked "champion" from a Group of Five conference. That means that no matter what record Temple has, it must reach and then win the AAC championship game on Dec. 5.

The SMU game starts a string of four AAC games to end the regular season - including 15th-ranked Memphis (8-0) on Nov. 21 at Lincoln Financial Field.

Winning those games locks up the AAC East and a spot in the championship game.

Then the Owls will have to beat the representative from the AAC West, which likely will be Memphis, 18th-ranked Houston (8-0) or Navy (6-1).

The scenario remains the same. The only thing losing to Notre Dame did was reaffirm what the Owls need to do to reach the Peach or Fiesta Bowl. It is a 12-1 record, and it has to be the right 12-1 record, the one that includes an AAC championship.

The irony is that had Temple defeated Notre Dame in the biggest game in school history, it would not have enhanced its chances to become a NY6 team. Beating Notre Dame but then losing the AAC title game with a 12-0 record would have relegated Temple to a conference-affiliated bowl.

The Owls do not have the tradition of success or fan support to receive an at-large bid from the Peach or Fiesta, which technically could happen.

Things line up ideally for Temple. Houston embarrassed SEC member Vanderbilt on Saturday, 34-0, to re-emphasize that the AAC is the strongest of the Group of Five conferences. With Houston and Memphis possessing two victories over Power Five teams while Temple, Cincinnati, South Florida and East Carolina have one each, the automatic bid is almost assured of going to the AAC champion.

Temple potentially could get two wins over Top 25 teams - one on the day before the selection committee announces its playoff teams and final rankings.

Currently, the only other contender is 20th-ranked Toledo (7-0) of the Mid-American Conference.

To finish undefeated, Toledo must beat Northern Illinois (5-3) on Tuesday, win at Central Michigan (5-4), at Bowling Green (6-2), over Western Michigan (5-3) and then win the MAC championship game.

Running the table could push Toledo past a one-loss AAC champion, be it Temple, Houston, Memphis or Navy.

I would not call it that way, but I am not on the selection committee.

There was no moral victory for Temple on Saturday night. However, the Owls are still capable of achieving everything they positioned themselves for. While a win over the Irish would have highlighted their season, it was never going to define it.

That is still Temple's to establish.