Nationally Ranked Temple Owls Now Prepare For East Carolina

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- These are special days for the Temple University football team.

The Owls are 6-0 (3-0 in the AAC) after their 30-16 win over Central Florida on Saturday night and their continued success has allowed them to break into the national rankings for the first time since the end of the 1979 season. Temple is ranked 22nd in this week's AP Top 25 Poll and the Owls are 24th in the Coaches Poll as they prepare to visit East Carolina on Thursday night.

"I think it's nice when people recognize how hard they've worked," Temple head coach Matt Rhule tells KYW Newsradio about his team. "I think the real number that I think the kids should really be proud of is the fact of being 6-0. Finding a way to win all those games. As I've told them, the goal is to try and be ranked at the end of the year and the way you do that is by keep getting ready each week, keep playing hard and keep hoping things work out each and every game."

Listen to the entire interview with Temple's Matt Rhule:

Temple running back Jahad Thomas had yet another huge game in the win over UCF, finishing with 199 yards rushing and three scores. But the big key to victory in that game was another dominant performance by the Temple defense. The Owls held the Knights to just 134 yards of total offense. That outstanding defense helped the Owls overcome four turnovers. Of course, success on that side of the ball is nothing new for Temple. The week before, against Tulane, the Owls allowed only 110 total yards of offense. Temple allows just 14.7 points a game.

The Owls played on a Friday night earlier this season when they beat Charlotte, but this match-up with the Pirates will be their first Thursday night kickoff. Rhule talks about dealing with a short week.

"It's probably a tougher challenge mentally," Rhule says. "You don't have as many days to get yourself ready. We won't be as physical (in practice) as we normally are. We're banged up. It's harder when it's six games in and you come off a physical game like Saturday night, but we have guys that work really hard. They'll spend the extra time to make sure they know the game plan and they're ready to go."

This will be a tough test for the Owls. The Pirates are 4-3 (2-1 in the AAC) and a perfect 3-0 at home in Greenville, North Carolina.

"They are dynamic on offense," Rhule says. "They beat Virginia Tech earlier this year (35-28 on 9/26). They score over 30 points against pretty much everyone they play (average 32 a game). They have a two quarterback system. Then defensively, they are outstanding. They are at the top of the conference in a lot of categories. We'll have our work cut out for us on both sides of the ball. So going down there, it's one of the tougher places to play in our conference, it'll be a sold out stadium and we have to be ready to play."

The two quarterbacks for East Carolina are juniors Blake Kemp and James Summers. Kemp is completing 71% of his passes this season and he has 10 touchdown passes. Summers has four touchdown passes and he is second on the team in rushing with 354 yards. He also has six scores on the ground.

Last season these two teams met at the Linc, Temple winning 20-10.

Thursday night's game will kickoff at 7:00pm.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.