PHILADELPHIA — Six weeks after beating Penn State in football for the first time in 74 years, and 6-0 for the first time in 41 years, the unbeaten Temple Owls began this week in yet another unusual position: ranked in the Associated Press college football poll for the first time since the end of the 1979 season.
These heady days have been decades in coming. But just hold that thought.
“Being ranked is cool,” said P.J. Walker, the Owls’ junior quarterback, “but you don’t want to be ranked 22nd in life.”
As if No. 22 Temple needed any additional inspiration to move to 7-0 for the first time in the program’s history, the Owls are 3-point underdogs against East Carolina (4-3), their opponent Thursday in an American Athletic Conference game in Greenville, N.