Category: Tiger Blue

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Tiger Hoops Scandal? Ho-hum.

Malcolm Dandridge (photo by Wes Hale)

Larry Kenon is a certifiable Memphis basketball legend. In his one season as a Tiger (1972-73), Kenon established a single-season rebound record (501) that will never be touched. He helped another Larry legend (Finch) lead Memphis State to the NCAA championship game, where the Tigers fell to mighty UCLA. Kenon’s number 35 is among ten retired numbers that now hang from the rafters at FedExForum on Tiger game days.

A detail you might now know about Larry Kenon: Among the conditions he insisted upon before committing to the Tiger program: He didn’t have to attend a class. (I was three years old in 1972, but I have this nugget from a reliable source who was near the program for that unforgettable season.)

The Tigers won their biggest conference game of the season Sunday afternoon at FedExForum, beating FAU, 78-74. But they did so without one of only two players still on the team from FAU’s upset of Memphis in last year’s NCAA tournament. Center Malcolm Dandridge sat out the game as the university investigates chatter of academic misdeeds involving the fifth-year senior. It’s a deflating cloud over a program that has reached the heights of a Top-10 ranking and the lows of a four-game losing streak this winter. But you know what? These cloud conditions are part of Memphis Tiger basketball, every bit as much as the blue and gray of their uniforms.

If you’re too young for memories of Larry Kenon, perhaps you recall Keith Lee, the record-shattering power forward from West Memphis who became a Tiger in 1981 upon receiving a shoebox — between a size seven-and-a-half and a nine, according to Lee himself — full of cash. You’ve likely forgotten the Tic Price tryst. Finch’s successor as Tiger coach resigned abruptly before the 1999-2000 season when he was discovered to have been playing some bedroom ball with a U of M student. It’s easy to forget this scandal, as all it cost Memphis was a mediocre coach.

Arguably the greatest team in Tiger history reached the championship game in 2008, but there’s no banner to celebrate the squad because star freshman Derrick Rose, the NCAA determined, had someone else take the standardized test that qualified him to play at Memphis. James Wiseman was the most heralded freshman to suit up for the Tigers since Rose, but played in only three games early in the 2019-20 season before the NCAA ruled he had taken improper payments from his future coach — Penny Hardaway — when his family moved to Memphis before his senior year at East High School. And just last November, Hardaway served a three-game suspension for what the NCAA deemed an improper recruiting visit. 

It’s exhausting to read all together, isn’t it? One ugly “distraction” after another, almost as regular for the Memphis program as visits to the Sweet 16. Making the current Dandridge matter especially troubling: The player is as Memphis as Hardaway, no import (like Kenon, Rose, or even Lee, from West Memphis). Dandridge surely has a sense of those historic “clouds.” If not, the man who coached him at East and now for five years at the U of M could certainly draw a picture.

Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding. Maybe it was one or two bad decisions made by one young man, and the problem can be sliced cleanly from the larger basketball system this city celebrates and its favorite son, Hardaway, manages. Hardaway had little to say about the matter following Sunday’s win: “I’m gonna learn as [everyone else] learns.” And that’s a component to the problem: If Hardaway truly knows nothing about a fifth-year player breaking rules, the coach is part of that problem.

FedExForum splashed an awkward promotion on the scoreboard and concourse screens as fans departed Sunday’s game. “Senior Day” will be celebrated when the Tigers host UAB on March 3rd. The player staring from those screens, representative of this year’s Memphis senior class: Malcolm Dandridge. The guess here is that a Dandridge appearance for Senior Day is a 50/50 proposition, at best. 

The Tigers have now won 20 games under Hardaway in each of the coach’s six seasons. Feels like something to celebrate, especially in an up-and-down campaign. But with the scent of scandal in the air? We pause the celebration. Yet again.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Memory Makers

David Jones leads the AAC in scoring (photo by Wes Hale).

When the University of Memphis hired Penny Hardaway to coach its basketball program in 2018, his task was to make Tiger hoops meaningful again, to make Tiger seasons memorable. (What stands out in your memory from the four seasons prior to Hardaway taking over? See how this works?) Hardaway’s first five seasons went well by some measures and fell short of expectations by others. But each, in its own way, was memorable. Which begs the question as March nears: How will the Tigers’ 2023-24 season stand out for local hoop historians? For context, a brief review of the Coach Penny era, seasons 1 through 5.

2018-19: The Year of Jeremiah

Before this season, no Tiger had ever scored 40 points in two different games. Jeremiah Martin did so in the same month (February). A player who averaged 2.7 points per game as a freshman under coach Josh Pastner became the fifth to score 700 in a single season (19.7 average). The pride of Mitchell High School made a mediocre (22-14) season unforgettable.

2019-20: The Year of Our Precious

Many in these parts remember this season as The Year Without Wiseman. The mighty NCAA decided Hardaway had violated rules in his recruiting of James Wiseman, leading to a suspension of the player and eventually his departure from the program. But let’s accentuate the positive. The team’s “other” five-star recruit, Precious Achiuwa, averaged 15.8 points and 10.8 rebounds and became the first Tiger to earn Player of the Year honors in the American Athletic Conference. The season ended prematurely with the Covid shutdown, so we’ll never know if that team (21-10) may have rallied in the AAC tourney for a bid to the Big Dance. But again, one player made the season rather remarkable.

2020-21: A National Title (Sorta)

Empty arenas and a team that couldn’t seem to decide its star. Landers Nolley? Boogie Ellis? Lester Quinones? A six-game winning streak late in the season wasn’t enough to get the Tigers into the NCAA tournament, so they headed to a slimmed-down NIT in north Texas. And they won the darn thing, beating Mississippi State in the final for the program’s second NIT crown. Did it fill a void? Meet Hardaway’s expectations? No and no. Did it make for a memorable ending to a pandemic-heavy winter of Tiger basketball? Emphatically yes.

2021-22: Dancing Days Return

This team beat a pair of Top-10 squads (Alabama and Houston) on its way to the program’s first NCAA tournament since 2014. Freshman Jalen Duren (12.0 points, 8.0 rebounds) played his way into the first round of the NBA draft and the Tigers gave top-ranked Gonzaga all it could handle in the second round of the NCAAs. A season that felt like Hardaway and the Tigers were on the right path.

2022-23: The Year of KD

After transferring from SMU, point guard Kendric Davis led the AAC in both scoring (21.9) and assists (5.4), somehow falling short in the league’s Player of the Year voting. Better yet, Davis helped the Tigers knock off top-ranked Houston — the first such upset in program history — and win their first AAC tournament. An overlooked timeout near the end of their clash with FAU in the opening round of the NCAA tournament ended the season prematurely. Davis became the second player to put up 700 points in a season under Hardaway.

How will we remember the current season when all is said and done? As of now, it’s The Midseason Massacre, a four-game losing streak that, in rasslin’ terms, knocked a Top-10 team entirely out of the ring. David Jones leads the AAC in scoring and is the kind of player who could help Memphis make a run in the conference tournament next month. It’s a good time for Tiger fans to remember basketball memories aren’t born but made.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Talented Teasers?

Penny Hardaway (Credit: Wes Hale)

Are the Memphis Tigers a legitimate Top-10 team, Final Four contenders? Or are they the biggest teasers east of the Dallas Cowboys? Nineteen games into the 2023-24 season, it seems the answer to one of these questions will ultimately be in the affirmative.

Sunday’s loss at Tulane — the Green Wave’s first upset of a Top-25 team since the Clinton presidency — changed the Tigers’ season, and compounded last Thursday’s loss at home to USF. A team that started the week undefeated in a less-than-respected American Athletic Conference now has a two-game losing streak and, worse, merely 12 regular-season games left to improve its resume for those who hand out seeds for the NCAA tournament. Memphis, you might note, has never reached the Sweet 16 seeded lower than sixth.

Last Thursday night at FedExForum could have been an anomalous nadir. With the arena virtually empty — the university publicly urged fans to stay home and off the icy roads — Memphis looked all of its number-10 ranking in taking a 20-point lead into the second half. Then they seemed to hit black ice as a unit and allowed USF to storm back, tie the game with less than a minute to play, and win the contest on a Kasean Pryor free throw with five seconds to play. (There’s brutal irony in a team from South Florida knocking off the Tigers while fans were home dripping their faucets.) The Tigers’ late-game hero Jahvon Quinerly committed a turnover in the game’s closing seconds and missed a desperation three-point attempt at the buzzer. If empty seats could boo, they would have.

The loss was especially bizarre, as it came four days after Memphis looked like their predecessors from 2008 or 1985, both Final Four years. The Tigers scored 112 points in beating Wichita State, the most on the road for this program in 69 years. Against USF, they couldn’t crack 80. The Tigers drained 19 three-pointers in overwhelming the Shockers, a program record. Against the Bulls, they missed 22 of their 28 shots from long range. Memphis lost despite outscoring USF 42-18 in the paint and 21-2(!) on fast breaks. The numbers don’t make sense, but the loss is permanent and will cost Memphis its spot in that hallowed Top 10.

As long as Quinerly and David Jones remain healthy, the Tigers will enter March with an arsenal most teams — “power conference” or otherwise — would envy. Jones (21.7 points per game) is the leading candidate for AAC Player of the Year. Right behind him may well be Quinerly (14.0 points, 4.7 assists). Were it not for Quinerly’s game-winning treys against Tulsa and SMU, the Tigers might have a losing record in league play. Jones took a three-point shot that could have won Sunday’s game at Tulane. He missed, as stars sometimes do. How will the Tigers process two straight gut punches as they wait a week before returning to play (Sunday at UAB)?

Following the Tigers’ narrow escape against SMU on January 7th, Hardaway emphasized the joy he took in seeing his team improve while winning. Beats the “learn from our losses” track every day of the week. And the Tigers are certainly better for their recent 10-game winning streak. But Hardaway also suggested this group of veteran transfers may actually be too confident, that they feel like any obstacle or deficit can be overcome, and this can sometimes compromise group effort. A home loss to a team with a NET rating of 146, you gotta believe, might help reduce that overconfidence intangible.

Another intangible to track with these Tigers: team chemistry. Following the USF loss, Hardaway suggested internal strife was impacting who he could put on the floor and when. If this is the case (more than two months into the season), the likelihood of a full recovery — let alone a Final Four run — seems remote. The sixth-year coach may have the greatest challenge of his career on his hands: Getting the most out of a talented team before the players on that team sabotage the mission. That would be a cruel tease, indeed.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Memphis Wins AutoZone Liberty Bowl

Seth Henigan, MVP of the 2023 AutoZone Liberty Bowl (photo by Wes Hale)

Under a sky as gray as the trim on their uniforms, the Memphis Tigers made some local football history at the 65th AutoZone Liberty Bowl.  In beating Iowa State, 36-26, Friday afternoon at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, Memphis reached 10 wins in a season for only the fifth time in program history (and the fourth since 2014). The 2023 Tigers go into the record books as only the second to win 10 games and finish the season with a bowl victory, joining the 2014 squad.

The victory in its home stadium was the eighth postseason win in 16 games for Memphis, and crowned the Tigers champions of the oldest, most prestigious bowl game among those eight. The win serves as a measure of revenge for a loss the Tigers absorbed against the Cyclones in the 2017 AutoZone Liberty Bowl.

“108 years of Memphis football,” emphasized Tiger coach Ryan Silverfield after his third bowl victory in four years atop the program. “To be the fifth team ever to win 10 games . . . It’s been an absolute honor to coach this wonderful group of young men. They’ve gone through so many trials and tribulations, but they continue to persevere.”

Junior quarterback Seth Henigan earned MVP honors by tossing four touchdown passes and rushing for a fifth. His 70-yard strike to DeMeer Blankumsee on the third play of the game put the Tigers up in a contest they led for 58:41 out of 60 minutes of game action. Henigan’s 51-yard connection with Joe Scates made the score 19-0 before the end of the first quarter. The Cyclones closed within six points (19-13) late in the second quarter, but a Tanner Gillis field goal made it 22-13 at halftime. A pair of Henigan touchdown passes in the third quarter made the margin 36-13, enough to earn Memphis its first win over a “Power 5” program in 2023.

In passing for 364 yards, Henigan surpassed Brady White to establish a new career record for Memphis with 10,764 yards. He also became the first Tiger quarterback to complete 300 passes in a single season. Henigan intends to return for a fourth season in 2024.

“Our players expected to win the football game,” said Silverfield. “We knew who our opponent was. We cranked it up. Our players had full confidence in themselves.”

Both Henigan and the Tigers’ defensive player of the game — linebacker Chandler Martin — acknowledged aggravation at their team being a 10.5-point underdog against the Cyclones. “I took it personal,” said Henigan. Martin showed just how personal he took things by making five tackles behind the line of scrimmage, almost half his total (12) for the season entering the game. Martin’s heroics helped the Memphis defense hold Iowa State to zero rushing yards, a first for the Tiger program in 30 years. Memphis added another pair of zeroes to a remarkable postgame stat sheet: zero penalties and zero turnovers.

“Zero rushing yards [allowed] is a feat in any game,” noted Henigan, “but especially in a bowl game, against a good Big 12 opponent. The coaching staff preached the opportunity to have a 10-win season. That’s what we were playing for. Our guys knew that. This was a huge win, going into the offseason and recruiting.”

Silverfield likes to emphasize a word he put on the back of t-shirts way back in August, before temperatures cooled and the heat of a 12-game regular season rose: “finish.” Having finished the 2023 season as strongly as any team in the program’s history, the coach relished positive steps toward an “ultimate goal” he says the team still hasn’t achieved. “This season was unique,” he said, “as we found ways to win games that maybe in the past we hadn’t. We found ways to finish. College football has changed so much, but it’s still about building a program, and doing it the right way. My number-one job is to serve these young men. And that’s not going to change. This was a great way to put a ribbon on a fantastic season.”

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Sports Tiger Blue

Coach Hardaway’s Time

Penny Hardaway (photo by Wes Hale)

When does a college basketball coach earn the word era? I mean truly earn it? Tubby Smith may have won a national title at Kentucky, but his two seasons with Memphis don’t constitute an era. What about the seven years Josh Pastner coached the Tigers? Era or no era? (It was not an era.)

For me, the Penny Hardaway Era of Tiger basketball arrived Saturday afternoon at FedExForum, when Memphis beat the 13th-ranked Clemson Tigers without playing its best basketball. The win came six days after beating another Top-25 team (Texas A&M) on the road and barely three weeks after beating another Top-25 team (Arkansas) in the Bahamas. Upon his arrival in 2018, Hardaway famously asked for “all the smoke,” boldly asserting the Tiger basketball brand before he’d coached his first game at the college level. Three seasons later, his Tigers won a bizarre, pandemic-restricted NIT in Texas. Then last March, his Tigers won the American Athletic Conference tournament by beating the top-ranked team in the country (Houston), a first for the Memphis program. But those moments were prelims. The Hardaway Era is finally upon us.

Consider, for a moment, the teams that visited Memphis in December 2017, Smith’s final season at the helm: Mercer, Samford, Bryant, Albany, Siena, Loyola, LSU. The Tigers won six of those seven games … but who cared? (They finished that month with a 34-point loss at Cincinnati.) It was a dreadfully low point in the proud history of Tiger basketball.

Cut to this season and the schedule Hardaway acknowledged as having drawn up “blindly,” not knowing the composition of his roster when the games were booked: five teams from the SEC before Christmas, two from the hallowed ACC, Michigan, and Villanova. This isn’t just boosting a non-conference schedule for those who rank teams and hand out NCAA tournament bids. This is imposing oneself on the sport. It’s bullying the very notion that Memphis is from a lesser league, a tier below the national-title contenders. As it turns out, Hardaway himself is bringing the smoke. Can his peers and rivals handle it? (Following Saturday’s game, Clemson coach Brad Brownell said, “Penny must be secure in his job to draw up the schedule he has.”)

Memphis handed Clemson its first loss in 10 games despite not playing stellar basketball. In the team’s first home game since November 17th, the visitors raced out to an 11-2 lead. Hardaway’s troops never found their shooting touch, missing 22 of 26 three-point attempts. (Hardaway insisted his team “did not take one bad shot against the zone.” They just missed them.) But Memphis played sound defense, forcing 15 turnovers, and got to the foul line, hitting 17 of 23 free throws. Star forward David Jones led all scorers with 22 points, but even he missed three free throws late to make the result tighter than it had to be. A huge win for Memphis, and not their best. Not yet.

A spot in the Top 25 is coming. “Out of anyone in the country, I feel like we really had to earn [a ranking],” said Hardaway after the victory. “I know what it’s gonna take for us: to keep learning, to keep winning. We haven’t even scratched the surface. There’s room to grow.” As of Sunday, Memphis had climbed to 34th in the NCAA NET ratings, higher than a few programs you’ve heard of: North Carolina, Gonzaga, Villanova. With another Top-25 foe (Virginia) visiting Tuesday, the Tigers will have another chance to impress AP voters and such. Vanderbilt — an eighth “Power 5” opponent — will be here Saturday.

A college player can establish an era in as few as two seasons. Penny Hardaway did so as an All-American guard for Memphis State (1991-93). It’s taken six seasons (three decades later), but the Coach Penny Hardaway Era in Memphis is here, and in full force. Winter is coming for the American Athletic Conference.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts: When Fortune Favors

Photo by Wes Hale

Five weeks into the Memphis Tigers’ current season, I mentioned a certain good-fortune factor that seemed to be playing a role for a program historically cursed by, we’ll call it today, less-than-good fortune. (Anyone remember the name Gino Guidugli?) When breaks happen on Tiger game days, historically, they don’t tend to go the blue-and-gray way. Folks … that was then. Since that column (October 2nd), Memphis has won a game in which it allowed a go-ahead touchdown with 47 seconds remaining in the contest. Memphis has won a game in which it allowed its opponent 50 points on home turf. And now, Memphis has won a game in which it trailed by 10 points on the road with less than eight minutes to play. That sparkling 8-2 record could easily be 5-5, or worse.

Following his team’s three-point win over Boise State on September 30th, Tiger coach Ryan Silverfield painted a picture of his team’s collective culture. Having fallen behind the Broncos, 17-0, the Memphis program seemed to turn a corner that may have changed this season permanently. “The 118 guys on the sideline were like, ‘What do we have to do? How do we keep fighting?’ That’s what makes this group special. There was no fret. There was no ‘Oh my gosh.’ Just, ‘What do we need to do to get back in this game?’” A win or two can be attributed to luck, and that goes for every team in every season. But a team doesn’t win eight of 10 games without having two things: collective talent and collective will. It’s been especially gratifying to see an “unlucky” football program pile up wins that seem to tilt in its favor in ways opponents once enjoyed.

• With SMU coming to Memphis this Saturday for a clash between 8-2 teams, you can’t help but think back to November 2, 2019, when an 8-0 Mustangs team visited a 7-1 Memphis team to cap the biggest Saturday — at that time — in the program’s history. With ESPN’s College GameDay crew on Beale Street and more than 58,000 fans packing the Liberty Bowl (no SEC team in sight!), the Tigers won a classic, 54-48, on its way to an AAC championship and a berth in the Cotton Bowl. 

Both SMU (6-0 in the American Athletic Conference) and Memphis (5-1) are in contention to play in the AAC championship game … but the Tigers cannot afford another loss for such a dream (last realized in that unforgettable 2019 season). Will 50,000 fans pack what we now call Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium for this Saturday’s 11 a.m. kickoff? Almost certainly not. Might we see 40,000 in the stadium for the first time this fall? If not, more consideration needs to be given to the fact that the Tigers’ den is simply too large for the program. Because this Memphis team has earned a football party.


• The Tigers will take the field Saturday with a home record of 4-1 this season and a total of 55 home wins since 2014. Only three programs in the country have won more in front of their own fans over the last decade of college football, and you’ve heard of them: Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State. No, Memphis isn’t beating SEC, ACC, or Big 10 foes. But the Tigers have made Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium a rough place to play for visitors. How many seasons before 2014 were needed for Memphis to win 55 home games? The answer is twenty (1994-2013), precisely twice as long as the current decade of joy. The “golden era” of Memphis Tiger football? You’re living it. Still.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts on Memphis Tiger Football

Photo by Wes Hale.

The University of Memphis football program needs to be in a bigger, better conference than the American Athletic. This is a topic much discussed, and one that won’t go away until the dream is realized. The program is just as desperate, though, for a rival. A true, villainous, pure-evil, dressed-in-black-even-when-they’re-not rival. Which made Saturday’s game at UAB fun, and somewhat special as the Tigers work their way through a watered-down AAC schedule. The first “Battle for the Bones” in 11 years meant the heaviest rack of ribs — if not heaviest trophy — in college football would see daylight again. (The trophy weighs more than 90 pounds.) After a slow start, Memphis walloped the Blazers, 45-21, to improve to 5-2 on the season and retain ownership of those bronze bones. It felt like the Tigers turned back a rival.

Is UAB the Tigers’ answer for that role of gridiron gremlin? Not long-term, I don’t believe. They’ve actually only played 16 times (Memphis has won six). Compare that with Arkansas State, a Memphis foe no fewer than 62 times. But can the Red Wolves be considered THE rival for Memphis? Not until they’re in the same conference. Ole Miss and Mississippi State aren’t the answer, both part of the privileged SEC, and both dominant historically against Memphis. Tulane feels like a rival, particularly as the Green Wave has risen to the top of the AAC and won three of the last five meetings with the Tigers. I miss the Black-and-Blue Game with Southern Miss (last played in 2012). I’m not sure which program can play this role for Memphis, but with North Texas, South Florida, and Charlotte coming up on the Tigers’ schedule, I know a void when I see it.

• Saturday’s victory at UAB was the 26th win for Ryan Silverfield as head coach of the Memphis Tigers. It’s a significant number, for me, as it matches the total Justin Fuente compiled over his four seasons (2012-2015) atop the program. This isn’t to suggest Silverfield is as good a coach as Fuente, or has had the kind of impact on the program Fuente had (he has not), but it is a connection to the man we must credit most with turning a moribund program into one expected to play in a bowl game at season’s end, one expected to compete for conference championships. Fuente inherited a bottomed-out operation that had won a total of three games the two seasons before he took over. By his third year, Fuente commanded a 10-win AAC co-champion ranked 25th in the country. There have been few turnarounds in college football history as quick or as dramatic. Silverfield is a beneficiary of that turnaround, having arrived as an assistant to Mike Norvell in 2016 when Fuente departed for Virginia Tech. Will the Tigers win 10 games this season? Win the AAC? Both seem unlikely right now. But is the Memphis program relevant, competitive, worthy of attention? Absolutely. Here’s to 26 more wins, and then some, for Ryan Silverfield.

• Memphis is the only team in the AAC with a player among the league’s top four in passing (Seth Henigan, 265.1 yards per game), rushing (Blake Watson, 84.7), and receiving (Roc Taylor, 79.4). With 593 yards, Watson has already topped last season’s Tiger rushing leader (Jevyon Ducker, 544 yards). With 556 yards, Taylor will likely top last season’s leader (Eddie Lewis, 603 yards) this Saturday at North Texas. A football team doesn’t necessarily require an offensive “big three,” but one can help win a lot of games.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Tiger Truths

Seth Henigan passed for 269 yards and ran for 64 in the Tigers' win over Boise State. (Wes Hale)

Last Saturday’s game at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium felt like a battle of college football’s misfit toys. On the visitors sideline was Boise State, famous for the blue turf of its home stadium and a recent streak of 16 consecutive seasons with a bowl appearance. Hosting, of course, were our Memphis Tigers, a program with nary a losing season since 2014 and three Top-25 finishes securely in the record books. Yet somehow both the Broncos (Mountain West Conference) and Tigers (American Athletic) remain outside the dance hall as the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and ACC continue to morph into a new quartet (Power 4?) of mega-leagues. Rejects always have each other … right?

On a sweltering final afternoon of September, the Tigers prevailed by a score of 35-32. It was the best game in the country not played by one of those “Power 4” programs. The win improved Memphis to 4-1 for the season with a bye week now before reigning AAC champion Tulane comes to town for a clash (a slash?) on Friday the 13th. It was an important victory for coach Ryan Silverfield’s team and confirmed three important truths we’ve learned about the 2023 squad.

• Resilient. For real. Every coach of every team in every sport likes to claim his group is “resilient,” that his players have the backbone to bounce back when necessary. While this can’t possibly be true for every team in America, it appears to be a quality these Tigers possess as a collective. When Memphis fell behind Boise State, 17-0, it appeared some shine had faded from the team in blue and gray. Wins over Bethune-Cookman and Arkansas State go only so far, and how much does a narrow win over Navy mean? But the Tigers bounced back in powerful fashion, scoring the game’s next 28 points. Better still, when the Broncos closed the Tiger lead to three points (28-25) midway through the fourth quarter, Memphis took possession and drove 75 yards, chewing up more than six minutes of playing time and scoring the touchdown (a one-yard scramble by Blake Watson) that proved to be decisive.

“We had an inexcusable, pedestrian start,” said Silverfield in his postgame comments. “That’s on me. I’ll take the blame. But our guys’ belief in what we’re doing is amazing. They fight, and they find a way to finish. That’s a team win. It took every single person.”

• Blake Watson is The Guy. At halftime of Saturday’s game, the Tigers saluted DeAngelo Williams, the greatest Tiger of all-time and the first Memphis player to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Fittingly, Tiger running back Blake Watson carried the ball 19 times for 113 yards for a Williams-like 5.9-yard average and scored two touchdowns, including that game-winner in the fourth quarter. Watson’s emergence separates this team from those of the last three seasons in which no Tiger ball carrier topped even 700 yards. Through only five games, Watson has 455 yards rushing, putting him on track for a 1,000-yard campaign, if not quite a DeAngelo Williams performance. Championship teams, universally, run the ball well. Keep an eye on the Old Dominion transfer as this season rolls along.

• The football gods are smiling. Late in the Tigers’ win over Navy, a Midshipman play that had resulted in a first down deep in Memphis territory was reviewed by the officials and determined to actually be short of first-down yardage. When Watson scored the Tigers’ final touchdown late in Saturday’s game, he dropped the ball before landing in the end zone. But another official review determined that Watson had broken the proverbial plane of the end zone with the football before it was dislodged. Not one, but two critical reviews have favored the Tigers (?!?) in a single month. 

Senior linebacker Geoffrey Cantin-Arku made the play of the game against Boise State, blocking a third-quarter field goal attempt, picking up the ball and sprinting 80 yards to seize the lead (21-17) for the home team. The native of Quebec (and former Syracuse Orange) was asked after the game about his play, and what it might represent in a season, so far, going largely the Tigers’ way. “Last year, we didn’t fight like this,” he acknowledged. “The spirit in the locker room is different. We’ve all got each others’ back. We’re gonna come to work.”

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Sports Tiger Blue

Tigers Undefeated! (and Uncertain)

Sutton Smith rushed for 115 yards in the Tigers' win over Bethune-Cookman. (photo by Wes Hale)

The case could be made that the greatest day in the history of the Memphis Tiger football program was November 2, 2019. With ESPN’s College GameDay crew on Beale Street that morning, and the Liberty Bowl packed to its rim that night, the Tigers beat SMU, 54-48, on their way to an American Athletic Conference championship and a berth in the prestigious Cotton Bowl. 

With memories of that night still alive in these parts, it was painful to learn last week that SMU — and not Memphis — will depart the AAC for the more renowned (and more lucrative) Atlantic Coast Conference. Already with this year’s departures (Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF), the AAC has become a collection of nerds in shoulder pads, without a date to the prom. Memphis is among those nerds, with what appears like less and less hope for a dance partner anytime soon.

Under this atmospheric gloom arrived the Tigers’ 2023 season Saturday night at what’s now called Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium. And on the opposite sideline to face the Tigers? Bethune-Cookman, an overmatched FCS opponent that couldn’t stir excitement beyond a tank of gas from the Wildcats’ campus in Daytona Beach. Memphis, as expected, dominated the glorified exhibition game. Final score: 56-14. Somehow, the Wildcats pulled off the play of the game, the first-quarter block/interception of a Seth Henigan pass by Amarie Jones that the lineman returned 69 yards for a touchdown. It was scintillating, even as it closed the Tiger lead to just three points (10-7). From that point, though, it was entirely Memphis. The Tigers racked up 551 yards of offense and held Bethune-Cookman to 91 (only 39 via pass).

Memphis players enjoyed some early season stat-padding. Junior quarterback Henigan completed 27 of 36 passes for 334 yards and a pair of touchdowns. (He also tossed two interceptions, including the Jones pick-six.) Sutton Smith ran for 115 yards on 18 carries and scored two touchdowns, complementing Blake Watson’s three-TD performance (75 yards on 10 carries). Eight different Tigers caught Henigan passes and eight different Tigers made at least two solo tackles on defense. It was the kind of game that accentuates hope for the 11 regular-season contests that remain. The kind of game that suggests these Tigers might be better than the six-loss teams of 2022 and 2021.

As I looked at the half-filled stadium, though, I kept thinking of SMU, and the 58,325 people who made that night in November 2019 unforgettable in the Mid-South. (It remains the largest home crowd to watch the Tigers play an opponent other than Ole Miss or Tennessee.) If anything, the 26,632 fans who purchased tickets for The Bethune-Cookman Game should be saluted for their devotion to the cause of Memphis football. It’s easy to fork over your cash for the kind of clash that attracts College GameDay. To watch the first meeting between Memphis and an FCS bunch from Florida’s east coast? That requires blue and gray in the blood.

The Tigers will hop a bus to Jonesboro later this week and face Arkansas State Saturday. (The Red Wolves aim to recover from a 73-0 undressing at Oklahoma.) Then comes a short week and a Thursday-night home tilt against Navy to open AAC play. Never have those AAC games felt more important to the Memphis program. Still on the outside of that dance hall, the Tigers simply must contend — annually — for a conference title, as long as they remain in a second-tier league like the AAC. There’s too much other football — the SEC is expanding — to distract the casual fan. It’s too easy to make one’s den the “GameDay” venue. Memphis enjoyed a convincing win to open an important season for its program. The hard truth: Every week this season will demand more convincing.

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Tears. Again.

Penny Hardaway (photo by Larry Kuzniewski)

The coach’s son lay on the hardwood in the fetal position, protecting the basketball as if it were a newborn baby. His team leading by a single point with fewer than ten seconds to play, opposing players swarmed the Tiger senior as multiple teammates called and signaled for a timeout. Instead of granting the timeout, though, officials ruled one of those opponents also claimed possession, granting the underdog one final chance to erase the Memphis lead.

The lead was erased. Memphis coach Penny Hardaway threw his water bottle 30 feet in defeated disgust. He threw that water bottle for every last Memphian who witnessed Friday night’s horror show from Columbus, Ohio. The dreams of a long-awaited NCAA tournament run by the beloved home team were once again dashed, this time with egregious errors — some by game officials — that stacked upon one another like Tarot cards, every one of them portending black death for Memphis basketball.

With a few plays executed differently, the Tigers could have made the lousy “jump ball” call a moot point. Kendric Davis made an ill-advised pass near midcourt with 20 seconds left. The ball was intercepted, leading to that final sequence with Jayden Hardaway on the floor, cradling the rock. Florida Atlantic’s game-winning basket was scored via layup, no Tiger offering merely adequate resistance. It was acutely painful to watch. We all needed a water bottle to hurl.

And if the pain of the game result was excruciating, the big-picture ripple effect is purely paralyzing. With Fairleigh Dickinson — the East region’s 16th seed — having upset Purdue earlier, the Tigers would have had what amounts to a walkover Sunday. And with a win Sunday, Hardaway’s Tigers would return to the Sweet 16, that second-weekend land of delights in March Madness, the weekend where proud programs promote themselves for an entire nation of witnesses (and star recruits). Instead, merely five days after beating Houston (the country’s top-ranked team), Memphis lost to a team that will replace the Cougars as members of the American Athletic Conference next season. This was the basketball gods drilling an entire fan base in the soft parts.

We’ll get ’em next year. Sadly, there is no “we” for next year, not in college basketball. Davis has played his final game as a Tiger (and courageously, on a painfully turned right ankle). So has Alex Lomax and DeAndre Williams. Next year’s team will be a roster built from scratch by Hardaway, linked to the 2022-23 season by jerseys, sure, but not by the names on the back of those jerseys. “Next year” is ever the disappointing bridesmaid, this year being the one a fan cherishes, the one we cling to in the fetal position until it has no more oxygen to breathe.

Tiger fans with memories as old as 15 years will remember a point being shaved from the Memphis total in the 2008 national championship, Derrick Rose’s toes having been exposed (by video) to have touched the three-point stripe on a basket that originally gave Memphis three points. Kansas, of course, tied the game at the buzzer and won in overtime. Cut to Friday night in Columbus, and FAU was granted a point when video review exposed officials for missing an Owl three-pointer. The Owls, of course, won by a single point. How do these events happen at the expense of the same program?  

We are reminded at times that it’s okay to not be okay, and this is becoming conventional wisdom, a healthy mental-management mantra. Life will not feel okay among the Memphis Tigers’ fan base for a while, not with a 14th consecutive offseason at least one week longer than we’d prefer. There will be many happy memories, eventually, from the season just past. Davis and the AAC tournament championship are stamped in bold ink on this program’s decorated timeline. But for now . . . pain. Grab a nearby water bottle. Throw it as far as you can. If you happen to clock an owl, so be it.