Month: November 2016

Categories
News News Blog

New Plan Aims at Major Crime Reduction

From left, Strickland, Rallings, Norris, Gibbons, Weirich

Over the next five years, Memphis-area leaders are aiming for a major reduction in crime and a new plan revealed Tuesday is their road map to that goal.

Elected officials and law enforcement officials announced the third version of Operation: Safe Community Tuesday. The plan outlines new initiatives to reduce violent crime by 30 percent, property crime by 30 percent, and the overall crime rate here by 25 percent, all in the next five years.

The plan was spearheaded by the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission but the eight-month process of drafting the plan involved hundreds of conversations and hundreds of people, according to Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich. 

“This plan is, perhaps, the most comprehensive and thoughtful approach to fighting crime that this community has ever devised,” Weirich said during a news conference Tuesday at the Urban Child Institute.

The plan will cover years 2017-2021 and is subject to change if parts are deemed ineffective. The plan is more-focused than the current Operation: Safe Community plan, which covered 2012-2016. The new plan has 16 objectives. The current plan has 62, said Crime Commission president Bill Gibbons.

He said the plan is based on applied research and its success will be evaluated by the University of Memphis’ Public Safety Institute, of which Gibbons is director.

So, what’s in the plan? 

More cops, for starters.

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) has 1,973 officers, according to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. Five years ago, he said, the department had 2,452.

“We are hundreds [of officers] short of where we need to be,” Strickland said Tuesday. “To me, that’s one of the biggest things in this plan.”

MPD director Michael Rallings said he hopes to see a uniformed complement of about 2,500 “so we can properly staff the police department.” To get there, he asked for the public’s help.

“Often, we stand on the sidelines and we won’t give up our sons and daughters to make a difference,” Rallings said. “I’m going to ask Memphis again: you have to give up your sons and daughters to attack the problem that we have with our staffing.”

Strickland said MPD ranks won’t grow until a new class of officers is graduated sometime next year. Raising the staff to appropriate levels will take years, he said, but he hoped to accelerate the process with larger graduating classes.

Weirich said with more officers in the MPD and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, that none of “this can be done without that.”

Here are plan’s five goals and the 16 objectives officials believe will help them achieve them:

Strengthen community engagement in crime prevention efforts.
• Create a “Neighborhood Safety Initiative” to strengthen neighborhood watch and community partnerships with law enforcement. (Weirich characterized this as a “neighborhood watch on every street.)
• Assign prosecutors to targeted geographic areas to pursue local public safety priorities. (Weirich said under this model, prosecutors would “get to know the problem people and the people who are willing and able to build up the neighborhoods that need it most.”)
• Build trust through community policing and more interaction between law enforcement and the public.
• Expand the Safeways crime prevention program in apartment communities.

Strengthen law enforcement’s ability to reduce violent street crime.
• Hire and retain more law enforcement personnel.
• Expand data-driven, proactive policing.
• Enhance law enforcement training.
• Enhance information-gathering to reduce gang violence.
• Effectively initiate a “Gang Violence Intervention” model to curb gang-affiliated gun violence.
• Enact tougher state penalties for convicted felons with guns.

Strengthen intervention programs for ex-offenders.
• Provide jobs, life skills and support programs for high risk ex-offenders.
• Implement swift, certain and fair administrative sanctions for violating certain conditions of probation or parole.
(All of this, Weirich said, was to “make sure prison beds in this state and from our community are only used for the worst of the worst and not used for those technical violations like missing too many probation appoitnments because the bus was late.”

Enhance domestic violence prevention and intervention efforts.
• Evaluate and expand the Family Safety Center to reduce the number of repeat victims.
• Effectively initiate a “Domestic Violence Intervention” model to deal with repeat offenders.

Enhance interventions for juveniles committing delinquent acts.
• Establish a juvenile assessment center for non-violent juvenile offenders. (Weirich said this will help “make sure juveniles in the community are getting the help they need so that they never come back to the criminal justice system.”)
• Create a system of Evening Reporting Centers to serve delinquent juveniles.

State Sen. Mark Norris said this involved with the plan are looking for “end results, not interesting results. He said it marked a new way forward on law enforcement that had include smarter laws not just tougher laws.

“That’s where we’re headed,” Norris. “This next generation we’ve go to the smart about law enforcement.”

Categories
Music Music Blog

Sharp Balloons Reunion at Bar DKDC

Sharp Balloons live at Goner Records.

This Saturday night one of the most interesting punk bands to come out of the Goner records scene will reunite for a show at Bar DKDC. Formed after Sector Zero bit the dust, Sharp Balloons featured Joe Simpson (True Sons of Thunder, Rat Traps) Zac Ives (Final Solutions, Son of Vom) and first time bassist Heather Simpson.

Sharp Balloons Reunion at Bar DKDC

The band had an unwritten rule that if a member wrote a song they had to sing it, making for songs that were as unpredictable as they were catchy. Sharp Balloons frequently played the local punk haunts of the last five years, including the final days of the Poplar Lounge, in addition to familiar places like the Buccaneer, the old Hi-Tone, and Murphy’s.

Sharp Balloons Reunion at Bar DKDC (2)

While the gig on Saturday appears to be more of a reunion show than a full fledged re-appearance, Saturday night should serve as an interesting window into the Memphis punk scene of the past. Check out a live video of Sharp Balloons covering the Toy Love song “Pull Down the Shades” in Jackson, Mississippi below, and get to Bar DKDC by 10:30 p.m. this Saturday night. As always, the cover is $7.

Sharp Balloons Reunion at Bar DKDC (3)

Sharp Balloons Reunion at Bar DKDC (4)

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

“KKK More American than Obama” — Deputy Director of Finance for Shelby County Corrections.

Phones are buzzing in the halls of Shelby Co. government this morning because of a Facebook post shared by David Barber, Deputy Director of Finance for the Shelby County Department of Corrections. According to the accompanying status, the KKK is more American than two-term US president Barack Obama. Get ready, this story’s just starting to crank up, and will probably be everywhere, shortly.

Here’s the offending post from Nov. 7.

Also, this.

And, in case you’re wondering who the guy is, it’s all in his profile. 

UPDATE: David Barber has resigned.

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies 102, Jazz 96: Finally, a Road Win

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Larry Kuzniewski

Last night the Grizzlies got an important road win over a solid (if depleted) Utah Jazz team in Salt Lake City, 102-96. It certainly wasn’t the prettiest game they have played, when has that ever been the measure of Grizzly success? Several players made key contributions, both young and old. The defense was never quite right, but they were able to get stops when it mattered, and the long road towards our glorious shared Fizdale Future got a little bit shorter.

The win was much-needed, especially in light of the disappointing end to the game in Milwaukee Saturday night. Without winning last night, the Grizzlies ran a real risk of going 0-4 on their current road swing, with the LA Clippers resting up for Wednesday night and the always tougher-than-expected Mavericks slated for Friday. The victory over Utah keeps them right at .500, which is still about where I expect them to be for the next little while. The second tier of the West seems a bit more wide open than previously thought, and I don’t think any team with something resembling a winning record is going to be out of the playoff picture until very late in the season.

Now on with the recap.

In which Deyonta Davis is worth all that guaranteed money

It wasn’t clear when the Grizzlies traded the Clippers’ first round pick to Boston that they would do smart things with the two second-rounders they received in return, but given (1) Rade Zagorac’s nice play in the Adriatic League (which is a real league that exists, I discovered this year) and (2) the extreme promise that Deyonta Davis has shown in limited minutes, it’s clear that the fruits of the Second Jeff Green Trade (the good one) are going to pay off.

Davis is very raw, but it’s easy to see why he was projected to go in the lottery. On defense, it seems like he affects every single possession in some small way, without even trying that hard. He’s got a natural feel for the game, a basketball mind that lets him see what’s developing and be in the right place. He’s 19. He’s only going to get better. He might be a partial solution to Zach Randolph’s pitiful defense (which saw him sitting out in crunch time again last night in Utah), because his ability to protect the rim is unlike anything the Grizzlies have had in years.

There are going to be setbacks and bad nights, for sure, and he’s really only played heavy minutes two or three times, but Davis is surprisingly good, and certainly good enough that it makes sense for him to be paid like a first-round guy. Between Davis and Jarell Martin, you could be looking at the (bright) future of the Grizzlies’ frontcourt.

Larry Kuzniewski

David Fizdale’s new defense doesn’t quite work yet.

In which the earth continues to rotate but the Grizzlies’ defense doesn’t

Yeah. Well, I don’t know what else to say about this. Learning a totally new defensive scheme from the one that you’ve been playing to great success for several years in a row is not easy—in fact, it’s probably one of the hardest things for a team to change on the fly. Fizdale’s scheme is very different from the old Hollins/Joerger masterpieces dependent on overloading the strong side and never switching. Because there’s so much new, and because there are so many new and/or young players trying to play a defense that the veterans don’t even know that well yet, there are lots of problems once the defense is forced to rotate. No one is sure where to be when, or who is supposed to rotate to the ball, and the Grizzlies’ interior defense is suffering for it.

This is the underrated part of the coaching change, to me. The Grizzlies have depended on that defensive identity for years, and now they’re just firmly in the middle of the pack (they’ve got a defensive rating of 106.7 according to Basketball Reference, good for 13th in the league). Learning this stuff on the fly against good teams is challenging, especially from a motivational standpoint. It’s going to be hard to keep guys engaged with learning a new scheme when they’re getting beaten badly by solid offensive teams on a regular basis (this assumes the Wednesday night Clippers rematch goes as poorly as the first one did, which seems likely given how well LA is playing right now). That buy-in is essential. File “defense” under the “work in progress” category.

Larry Kuzniewski

Vince Carter has had a remarkable season so far.

In which Vince Carter is Chandler Parsons while Chandler Parsons can’t be

Vince Carter is playing the best basketball he’s playing in years, now that he’s officially the oldest player in the NBA. Right now, his FG%, 3P%, and offensive rating are literally higher than any other season in his career. Those numbers will inevitably return to something approximating his career averages, but still—he’s Vince Carter, so his career averages are still pretty dang good.

Carter’s finally fulfilling the promise of his signing, when he was brought in to replace a washed declining Mike Miller. Dallas was smart to let him go after the surgery, because it took two full years of recovery for him to be right again, but now he’s playing his best season since 2012-13. He might be ¾ Man, ¼ Amazing these days, but his defense, his shooting, his ability to move the ball around, and his steadying influence on the other guys on the floor have made him invaluable, especially since he’s doing all the things Chandler Parsons was brought in to do.

(Except the part where Vince Carter is a way better defender than Chandler Parsons even though he’s almost 40. There is that part.)

I’m not sure whether Carter’s early start is sustainable, but I don’t really care much. For one thing, it’s been amazing to get to watch Vince Carter do Vince Carter things after a couple of seasons of wondering how soon he was going to announce his retirement because he didn’t look like he could play anymore. For another thing, in theory, by the time the law of averages catches up with Carter, Parsons should be in better game shape and able to carry a more appropriate workload. (This is certainly wishful thinking, and I will probably be made to regret saying it.) At any rate, age is nothing but a number, and at almost-40, Carter’s got about eight years before his age catches up to his 3-point shooting percentage so far this year. Not bad, old man.

Game Haiku #10

I quit doing these for a while (OK, really just for the Nuggets game and the Bucks game) because, well, I put all of my hopes into a campaign to elect Juan Carlos Navarro President and I really think we could’ve won some electoral votes if it hadn’t been for those attack ads pointing out that he was neither an American citizen nor very effective for the one year he spent in the NBA. (That one glorious year when Memphians got to see La Bomba in the flesh! Ah, Juan Carlos! Ah, humanity!) When it all fell apart I was crushed, and fell into a deep depression, from which I was only rescued by YouTube clips like this one:

Anyway, it’s been a long week. Let’s get back on the haiku train.

Jazz in Utah? No,
The music is in Vince Carter,
Aged like a folk song.

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Tigers 94, UT-RGV 75

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

A Lawson shall lead them. But which one?

Larry Kuzniewski

K.J. Lawson

The Tubby Smith era officially opened Monday night at FedExForum, and sophomore Dedric Lawson — the American Athletic Conference’s preseason co-Player of the Year — contributed 19 points and 15 rebounds, figures to be expected from the team’s centerpiece this season. But Dedric’s older brother, K.J., stole some opening-night thunder by scoring a team-high 25 points in just 15 minutes of playing time. Classified as a redshirt freshman after missing 24 games with a foot injury last season, K.J. Lawson hit eight of his ten shots, pulled down eight rebounds, and even handed out four assists (no turnovers) in a performance his new coach claims is merely a teaser.

“K.J. is not close to what he’s capable of being,” said Smith after securing the 558th win of his Hall of Fame-bound career. “When you make shots, it helps, and no turnovers. He was excellent.”

The Tigers matched the up-tempo pace of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, though the opening minutes looked like the opening minutes of a season, Memphis committing six turnovers in the first six minutes. But with the Lawsons combining for 25 points and junior guard Markel Crawford hitting four of five shots from the field, the Tigers took a 51-40 lead to halftime.

Memphis extended the lead to 24 (73-49) eight minutes into the second half, spurred in part by the play of point guard Jeremiah Martin. The sophomore from Mitchell High School followed a three-pointer with a dunk in transition (on a feed from K.J. Lawson), and looked like the developing floor leader Smith expects him to be for this team.

Larry Kuzniewski

Tubby Smith

“He’s leading the right way,” emphasized Smith. “And he’s as competitive as there is.” Martin finished the contest with 13 points, six assists (four turnovers), and four steals. The point total topped his high last year as a freshman (11).

As for his statistical outburst, K.J. Lawson emphasized the mental toughness needed to fit Smith’s system, to take what an opponent allows (in terms of shot selection), and to never give in. “One thing I always have is confidence,” he said. “Coach Smith creates chaos in practice, so when we come to a game, it’s like we’ve already been here before.”

Nick Dixon led the Vaqueros with 28 points off the bench. UTRGV shot 38 percent for the game, compared with the Tigers’ 48 percent. Memphis struggled from the foul line, missing 14 of 35 shots.

Nine players saw at least 14 minutes of action for the Tigers, as Smith is aiming to manage minutes during a stretch that has the Tigers playing four games in nine days (all at FEF). Memphis returns to the floor Wednesday night when Milwaukee comes to town.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Brennan Villines

Music Video Monday is heading off the rails!

Singer/songwriter Brennan Villines says he got the idea for the year’s most unlikely cover on the spur of the moment. “I was playing one of my regular gigs one night and about to wrap up when my friend Billy came in and I asked him what he wanted to hear.Jokingly, he says ‘You got any Ozzy?’ So I tried ‘Crazy Train,’ and as I finished the song I looked up and Billy just has this astonished look on his face. He told me, ‘You have to record that.’”

Record it he did, transforming the metal anthem into a ballad for a world gone mad. “I decided to go with my gut and really focus my artistry with this piece on influencing a positive message and bringing out those lyrics ‘learn how to love and forget how to hate,’”

The music video, directed by Andrew Trent Fleming, brings home the message by transposing images of Villines and dancers with scenes of protest and hope. If you’re feeling shocked and dislocated today, this song is for you.

Music Video Monday: Brennan Villines

If you would like to see your music video on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News News Blog

First-Ever Bitcoin ATM Comes to Memphis

CREDIT: Joshua Cannon

Joshua Cannon

Just past the front doors of a Shell gas station on the corner of South Dudley Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue sits Memphis’ first-ever bitcoin ATM — the first of its kind and only the third machine like it in Tennessee.

Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009. It provides freedoms, and limitations, such as making purchases online, even anonymously, and is decentralized, meaning no bank or government has any authority to regulate the currency. That’s the short of it, but it’s far more complex: you can dive deeper here, here, and here.

The machines, built by leading U.S. bitcoin ATM network Coinsource, are the company’s answer to naturalizing the buying and selling of the electronic currency. Located at 967 Linden Avenue, Memphis’ lone ATM joins 60 other machines spread across seven other states including California and New York. Coinsource has installed bitcoin ATM’s at a rate of 1.2 machines per week since the beginning of 2016.

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“The demand for bitcoin ATM’s has never been higher than it is today,” said Coinsource CEO and Co-Founder Sheffield Clark. “Our reach in the South is growing. Many thousands of Americans have begun to realize that bitcoin is becoming a stable payment option and a lucrative form of investment as well”

Still scratching your head? Here’s a primer on how to purchase bitcoin from a Coinsource ATM:

First-Ever Bitcoin ATM Comes to Memphis

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Tiger Hoops: 2016-17 Wish List

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

The Chicago Cubs won the World Series. (Has that settled in?) Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency. Never have the words anything’s possible rung more true.

With the Memphis Tigers opening their 2016-17 season tonight at FedExForum (welcome, Texas-Rio Grand Valley), here’s a short wish list for a program on the rebound from two postseason-free campaigns. And remember: anything’s possible.

• Avoid ugly losses. However bad things appeared for Josh Pastner and the 2015-16 Tigers, a home loss to East Carolina last January made it clear something was wrong with the water. Later losses at Tulane and USF firmly placed Memphis in the bottom half of the American Athletic Conference. The Tigers split with each of these teams, making the defeats all the more maddening. Had the U of M swept each of these less-than-stellar clubs, a 19-win season becomes a 22-win campaign with at least an NIT bid in the mix. The Tigers have been picked to finish fifth in the AAC, and this seems about right. Handle the bottom-feeders.

Larry Kuzniewski

Tubby Smith

• Let Dedric Lawson shine. This starts with keeping the AAC’s preseason co-Player of the Year healthy. Some pulse rates increased at FEF last week when Lawson had to briefly leave the floor after what appeared to be a lower-leg injury. He returned and proceeded to finish the game with (ho-hum) 11 points and 13 rebounds. You have to believe Lawson will be in good hands under the watch of Tubby Smith. Over-use on a team that desperately needs him to perform could be deadly. Proper use, though, could make him the kind of impact player that earns All-America votes. And, not incidentally, attention in the NBA draft.

• A surprise stand-out. This team will need at least one under-the-radar player to become a significant member of the rotation. (Remember D.J. Stephens? You surely remember the junior and senior; highly unlikely you noticed the freshman or sophomore version.) Chad Rykhoek has the size to make a big difference, particularly at the defensive end. Jimario Rivers, likewise, could make the Memphis defense more formidable. Would a steady and productive Jeremiah Martin at point guard be considered a surprise? Expectations and needs are one thing (and Martin’s role is critical for the Tiger offense). Performance is another metric entirely.


• 89 three-pointers by Christian Kessee. This would give the senior transfer one more than he had last season at Coppin State, and 12 more than the Tigers’ top gun last season (the departed Avery Woodson hit 77, 32 more than any teammate). Dedric Lawson’s life will be miserable if the Tigers don’t establish an outside-shooting threat. Markel Crawford is not going to learn to be a sharp-shooter as a redshirt-junior. Martin hit six of 20 shots from downtown last season, K.J. Lawson just two of nine before being sidelined by injury. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kessee finishes second (or even first) on this team in minutes played. His marksmanship is that important.

• Earn a big win, anywhere. The Tigers don’t have what you’d call an imposing schedule. Only one team in the preseason AP Top 20 is sure to face Memphis: 18th-ranked UConn on January 5th (at FEF) and February 16th (at Storrs). The Tigers could face 8th-ranked Virginia — with one Austin Nichols — on November 26th, but this depends on how the bracket unfolds at the Emerald Coast Classic. So the Tigers’ big win (loosely defined now) may depend on the AAC standings. If Cincinnati is at or near the top of the league when Memphis travels to Ohio on February 23rd, a Tiger upset would be huge. (The Bearcats don’t come to Memphis this season.) Same goes for Houston, and the Cougars visit FedExForum on February 26th (a Sunday afternoon tip-off). Memphis swept the defending national champs in both 2013-14 (Louisville) and 2014-15 (UConn). The program is thirsty for an attention-grabbing upset.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Keith Ellison, Early Leader to Head the DNC, in a Speech to Tennessee Democrats

Rep. Ellison with Bernie Sanders at the Convention

In the aftermath of its unexpected and shattering defeat in the presidential race, coupled with a failure to recapture control of either chamber of Congress, the Democratic Party will be looking for new leadership to rescue its hopes.

Among the first imperatives facing the party is the selection of a new chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Whoever holds that position will be responsible for clarifying and overseeing the Democratic agenda for the next several years, leading up to mid-term elections in 2018 and another go at the Presidency in 2020.

One of the all-but-declared frontrunners for the chairmanship is U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who, insofar as his name rings any bells at all, is mainly known as the only Muslim serving in the Congress or,  as a leader of the congressional Progressive Caucus, having been one of the chief supporters of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.

Tennesseans who went to the Democratic National Convention in early August got a more close-up sense of Ellison and his views during a joint breakfast of the Tennessee and Minnesota delegations mid-way of the Convention.

In the course of his quite animated remarks at the breakfast, Ellison had some interesting things to say about Tennessee and its folkways and Memphis in particular, and he recalled one of the painful memories in our local history.

Here, to be heard as he said them, are his remarks to that delegation breakfast:

[audio-1]

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

USF 49, Tigers 42

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

On a chilly November night at the Liberty Bowl, the Memphis Tigers were victimized by a bouquet of Flowers.

Entering Saturday’s game, USF quarterback Quinton Flowers had compiled the kind of numbers — 1,941 passing yards, 921 rushing yards, and 27 combined touchdowns — that would have him leading Heisman Trophy projections if he played in a Power Five conference. Merely starring in the American Athletic Conference, though, Flowers continues to compile the numbers — and stupefy defenses — without any false illusions about a trip to New York City in December. Against Memphis, he passed for 263 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 210 yards with three more scores. Flowers’s season totals now exceed 2,000 yards passing, 1,000 yards rushing, and 30 touchdowns with two regular-season games still to play. His Bulls improved to 8-2 on the season and are in contention for the AAC’s East Division title with a 5-1 league record.

Larry Kuzniewski

Quinton Flowers

The numbers are one thing, but the plays Flowers makes — in traffic and through space — distinguish him like few dual-threat quarterbacks in the land. With the scored tied at 42 and less than five minutes to play, Flowers twice converted third-down plays through sheer athleticism. On the first, from the Tiger 49-yard line, Flowers escaped a heavy Memphis pass rush and galloped around right end for the five necessary yards, and then some. Three plays later, needing eight yards to extend the drive, Flowers completed a pass with Tiger linebacker Austin Hall wrapped around his legs. The 22-yard, game-winning  touchdown run that soon followed seemed casual in comparison.

“There were a bunch of plays where we had people in place,” noted Tiger coach Mike Norvell. “But then the missed tackles. You’ve got a guy with freakish abilities, to be honest. There were numerous plays, including the last touchdown, when we had guys on him, and he found a way to escape. He’s done that to a lot of people. That doesn’t make it any better for it to happen against us.”

After falling behind 14-0 midway through the first quarter, the Tigers fought back steadily, and took the lead — twice — in the third quarter. After a 36-yard run by tailback Patrick Taylor, U of M quarterback Riley Ferguson hit Daniel Hurd for a seven-yard touchdown on the Tigers’ first possession of the second half, giving the Tigers a 24-21 lead. Anthony Miller then recovered an onside kick at the USF 49-yard line, but the momentum shift died when Ferguson threw an interception (by Deatrick Nichols) at the 19. The Bulls responded with a quick drive culminating in a (ho-hum) Flowers 12-yard run. But Ferguson found tight end Daniel Montiel from the one on the ensuing drive to give the Tigers a 31-28 lead.

Three precious points slipped away late in the third quarter when Memphis kicker Jake Elliott pulled a 50-yard field-goal attempt slightly left, leaving the score 35-34 in USF’s favor.

Following a Marlon Mack touchdown (42-34, USF), Tony Pollard returned the kickoff to the Tiger 43-yard line. On the next snap, Ferguson found Miller in stride for a 57-yard touchdown. The two-point conversion (Ferguson to Phil Mayhue) knotted things at 42, setting up Flowers’s game-winning heroics.

Larry Kuzniewski

Anthony Miller

Memphis had one last chance — three, really — to tie the game at 49, but three Ferguson passes fell incomplete from the Bulls three-yard line, the last one deflecting off Miller’s hands as he was tightly covered. (Perhaps too tightly. Miller claimed after the game that his arm was grabbed as he jumped for the ball.)

All in all, this was Pac 12 football two time zones early. USF gained 679 yards on 79 plays while the Tigers racked up 608 on 81. Ferguson completed 29 of 46 passes for 331 yards. Montiel caught ten passes for 100 yards. Three different Tigers — Darrell Henderson, Taylor, and Doroland Dorceus — each ran for at least 75 yards.

Flowers aside, the star of the show was Anthony Miller. The junior wideout caught ten passes for 153 yards and in so doing, broke the great Isaac Bruce’s single-season Memphis record for receiving yards (1,054 in 1993). With three games left to play, Miller has 1,077 yards. “It seems like we lose every time I break a record,” said Miller after the game. “So I don’t know how to feel about it really.”

“I hurt for [our team],” said Norvell. “It really hurts, coming up short. But I love the guys in that locker room. We have to respond the right way. I want to thank all the veterans who came out to support us tonight. We’re so grateful for their service. We’re honored to play this great game; working hard to make you proud. It’s a shame we came up short today.”

The loss drops Memphis to 6-4 for the season (3-3 in the AAC). The Tigers travel to Cincinnati for their next game, Friday night. They’ll host the regular-season finale (against Houston) on November 25th.