It all comes down to this.
Temple can clinch the American Athletic Conference's East Division with a win over UConn on Saturday night.
A win over the Huskies secures a spot in the inaugural AAC championship game next Saturday with No. 21 Houston.
The Cougars took down No. 16 Navy, 52-31, on Friday to win the West Division (see story). The championship game will be in Houston.
Let's take a closer look at TU's showdown with UConn:
UConn (6-5, 4-3 AAC) at No. 25 Temple (9-2, 6-1)
Lincoln Financial Field
Saturday, 7 p.m., ESPNU
Scouting Temple
Coming off back-to-back games in which they allowed a combined 84 points and 953 yards, the Owls' defense stifled then-ranked No. 21 Memphis last Saturday in a 31-12 win. The Tigers entered the matchup with the sixth-highest scoring team in the FBS and TU held them to 12 points and no touchdowns.
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Memphis racked up 232 yards of total offense against the Temple defense, its fewest this season and its first game under 400 yards. TU also neutralized the Tigers' rushing attack, holding Memphis to just 76 yards on the ground. Much of the Owls' success last week stems from shutting down quarterback Paxton Lynch, who looked pedestrian at best against TU.
Last Saturday's performance was the kind of effort Temple had been accustomed for most of this season. Outside of the Notre Dame, SMU and South Florida games, TU has been an elite defense. And last week, the Owls completely shut down another highly-touted QB projected to go high in the NFL draft. (TU dominated Christian Hackenberg in Week 1.)
The No. 25 Owls come into Saturday's tilt allowing 20.2 points per game. Linebacker Tyler Matakevich became the seventh player in college football history to record at least 100 tackles in four straight seasons last week against Memphis on his fourth tackle. Matakevich finished with 11 on the day and has 107 on the season.
Quarterback P.J. Walker continued to trend upward against Memphis. The junior completed 14 of 26 passes for 261 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. With his second TD pass, Walker surpassed Henry Burris as TU's all-time leader with 50 career TD passes. He also ran for 49 yards on seven carries.
On the season, Walker is completing 56 percent of his passes for 2,290 yards, 17 touchdowns and six interceptions.
Scouting UConn
The Huskies are coming off a major upset last week in Houston, where they became bowl-eligible for the first time in five years and handed the Cougars their only loss of the season. Houston, like Memphis, entered last week as one of the nation's high-powered offenses but were stifled. UConn held Houston to 318 yards of total offense and 20 points.
Connecticut did so by forcing four turnovers — two interceptions and two fumbles. The one thing that stands out most about this UConn team is it wins the turnover battle. Entering Saturday, UConn is tied for fifth in the nation in turnover margin at plus-11. The Huskies have 24 takeaways to just 13 giveaways.
Who starts at quarterback Saturday night, however, is a question mark. Bryant Shirreffs is listed as questionable with a head injury he suffered against Houston. It'll either be Shirreffs or junior QB Tim Boyle under center against Temple. Shirreffs had just one pass last week, but it went for a four-yard TD.
This season, the sophomore has completed 60.3 percent of his passes for 1,992 yards, nine TDs and seven INTs. In relief of Shirreffs, Boyle last week completed 12 of 22 passes for 110 yards and no scores. Boyle managed the game for UConn, which relied on its defense to upset the Cougars.
So TU won't know who will be the starting QB come Saturday night, which is a challenge in itself.
Storyline to watch
Temple has been in this position before and got smoked. This is it. How will the Owls come out with the season on the line?
What's at stake?
This season has been one to remember on North Broad. Matt Rhule has put Temple football on the map, but the job is not done yet.
The Owls said it before the season began their goal was to get into the conference championship game. They had a chance to clinch it two weeks ago against USF, but got bulled over.
After beating Memphis, Rhule said his team hasn't been able to win this type of game. Now, the Owls have one final shot at getting the job done.
Temple will be in a bowl game, which is great, but the goal all along has been the conference championship. Losing to UConn on Saturday night would be a major disappointment.
For the 2015 Temple Owls, everything is at stake Saturday night.