Everywhere you look in Edberg-Olson Hall, there are signs hanging on the wall that say "1-0."
It's a reminder for the Owls that if they want to accomplish their goal of winning the American Athletic Conference East Division and head to their second straight conference championship game, they need to focus on taking care of business on the road against Tulane this week.
With two games left, Temple needs two wins to clinch the American Athletic Conference East Division. If SMU upsets South Florida this week, the Owls can wrap things up a week early with a win, but they're just focused on themselves and this week's game.
"The 1-0 thing we started saying, really, earlier this year," coach Matt Rhule said Tuesday. "We just tried to frame it a different way of every week, just trying to win that week. We started on Sunday and everything leads up to being ready to play at game time.
"You lose the game and you're out of the playoff hunt. This is a playoff game for us."
With no win over Penn State, no 7-0 start, no national ranking, no College Gameday coming to Philly, things have been a little different on North Broad this year. While the team is still poised for another conference championship appearance and back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history, there's been less outside attention on the program.
"It is just good being able to fly under the radar," senior running back Jahad Thomas. "You don't add any additional pressure to yourself. You're not expecting anything. The only pressure that you have is for your teammates and coaches, just for you to go out and perfrom at a high level week in and week out."
Temple's season started with a 28-13 Friday night loss to Army. After a win over Stony Brook in the Owls' next game, they lost to Penn State and fell to 1-2 three games in. The Owls have dusted themselves off and gone 6-1 with wins over AAC contenders USF and UCF since then.
"Coach Rhule just mentioned that like a lot of people were probably thinking, 'Where's this season gonna go? It could get out of hand.' But you know we really didn't think about it," senior quarterback Phillip Walker said. "We stayed calm, played our game and we just relaxed."
"We're a completely different team from then," Rhule said. "That was a team that was putting too much pressure on themselves."
Coming off a bye week, Temple (7-3, 5-1 AAC) plays a Tulane team that currently sits four games below .500 at 3-7 and has yet to win a conference game. The Owls aren't worried about what Tulane has accomplished this season. Rhule's players are just paying attention to the signs hanging around their facility.
"We're focusing on going 1-0 every week," senior linebacker Avery Williams said. "This is Tulane week. That's all we're focused on."
"We're just focused on going 1-0 this week," Thomas said. "We know that in order to get [to the conference championship], we've got to win this week. So that's what we're focused on."