Tag: Memphis Tiger football

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts on Tiger Football

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

• The “Magnifico Miss” will magnify with every Memphis win.
How significant will that blown call — Joey Magnifico’s “no-catch” on the Tigers’ final drive at Temple — be for the U of M? There are blown calls that impact a drive. There are blown calls that impact a game. And, now and then, there are blown calls that impact an entire season. Rarely do such calls happen in October, but let’s see how the rest of the season unfolds in measuring how much damage was done last Saturday in Philadelphia. Would the Tigers have won the game with a first down on Magnifico’s catch? You’d have to measure the odds as at least 50 percent, with enough time on the clock — at the time of the blown call — for the Tigers to reach the end zone, or at least set up a short field-goal attempt for Riley Patterson (and three points would have earned Memphis the win).

A win would have kept the Tigers undefeated and in the national rankings. It would have kept them in the discussion — perhaps leading the discussion — for the lone “Group of Five” entry in the New Year’s Six bowl games. Now? There’s still an American Athletic Conference championship to grab. A 10-2 regular season would likely get Memphis back into the national rankings. But that’s the catch (pardon the pun) with the “Magnifico Miss”: the better the Tigers do, the more painful that call (and loss to Temple) becomes. Lose two or three more games, and it’s an unfortunate stub of the toe on this season’s march to December. Should the Tigers regain their footing and enter national discussions again . . . it would be a bone bruise.

Larry Kuzniewski

Mike Norvell


• There’s no whine in Mike Norvell.
The Tiger coach is remarkably composed for a man still shy of his 40th birthday and competing for recognition at college football’s highest level. The first thing he mentioned at his weekly press conference Monday wasn’t the missed call, but the Tigers’ three turnovers on their first 16 offensive plays. Those played a larger factor in the loss than the “Magnifico Miss.” Furthermore, Norvell acknowledged fault himself: “There were probably five different play calls I would like to have back in that game. Everybody is involved. I didn’t have my best day on Saturday when it comes to calling plays and things we wanted to do.” His team’s conference schedule doesn’t allow time for sulking, much less complaining about an official’s call. Saturday night at the Liberty Bowl, Memphis plays a Tulane team that has improved since beating the Tigers handily (40-24) last year in New Orleans. The loss at Temple hurt, but not as much as a two-game losing streak would.

• The new sheriff likes the lay of the land.
I sat down with Laird Veatch, the new Memphis athletic director, earlier this week (for an upcoming feature in Inside Memphis Business). First thing to come across was his enthusiasm. (He’s the first AD I’ve interviewed who is younger than me, so let’s acknowledge strength in youth!) He’s genuinely excited to be at the U of M, and considers the opportunity for impact here greater than that he made at his previous stint (Florida) or even the experience he enjoyed at his alma mater (Kansas State). “You look at it from a business standpoint,” he noted. “A big company versus a midsize-company. It’s less bureaucratic. The structure here, with the trustees and the president, their engagement . . . there’s the right level of oversight and accountability, but we’re also able to work together, make decisions, and move things forward. That’s an exciting place to be.” Veatch recognizes the value of presence in leadership, something Norvell has developed in a short time, and a certain basketball coach has in abundance. There’s reason for his enthusiasm.

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From My Seat Sports

Frank Gives Thanks

I have so much to be thankful for; not quite enough room on the Internet. But I can start with a column on blessings from the world of sports.

• I’m grateful for the annual Martin Luther King Day game at FedExForum. It’s astonishing to me that this game isn’t televised nationally on ABC (or at least ESPN). A basketball game that celebrates tolerance and decency in mankind? We need more of these. Glad this one belongs to Memphis.

• I’m grateful for Phil Cannon and his extraordinary courage and grace in the face of cancer. One year after another, the FedEx St. Jude Classic sets a standard for professionalism and hospitality beyond the reach of your average PGA event. That’s Phil’s legacy.

• I’m grateful for “The Mask Game.”

• I’m grateful for American Pharoah. Truth be told, I’d given up on seeing a Triple Crown winner. The abundance of thoroughbred breeding and trainers bypassing the first two races to prep for the Belmont seemed to preclude such a three-year-old lightning strike. So glad I was wrong.

• I’m grateful for the impossible debate over which of the Grizzlies’ “core four” will have his number retired first. (It will be Zach Randolph.)

• I’m grateful for Justin Fuente and his “1-0” plan. It’s worked more often than not.

• I’m grateful for a visit to AutoZone Park by St. Louis Cardinals hero Willie McGee. Influence across baseball generations is a beautiful thing to see.

• I’m grateful for a man named Jeremy Hazelbaker. And his considerable talents on a baseball field.

• I’m grateful for memories of the leftfield bluff at AutoZone Park. The Redbirds have done so many things right since arriving here 17 years ago, but shutting off that bluff (after shaving it down) was a strikeout. My daughters grew up on that grassy slope (and its neighboring playground), as countless other Mid-South children did. In my mind, it was the best park (within a park) in the city. Last seen with a pickup truck and a target for winning said truck.

• I’m grateful for Josh Pastner’s optimism. We live in a cynical, sobering world. Find positive energy where, when, and however you can.

• I’m grateful for Jake Elliott on fourth down.

• I’m grateful for an NBA Finals with the cities of Oakland and Cleveland represented. It will happen, Memphis.

• I’m grateful for the Memphis Open and the survival of professional tennis at the Racquet Club. There are far more NBA and NFL teams in America than ATP events, making a week in February distinctly “big-league” for local tennis fans. Now, if we could just talk Roger Federer into a visit . . .

• I’m grateful for reaching a place where a three-game losing streak by the Memphis Tigers (football team!) seems painful.

• I’m grateful for the White Station Middle School soccer program. Over the last six years, I’ve seen two little girls grow into young ladies (and young leaders) under the guidance of coach Tom Pickering. A soccer field was merely the setting.

• I’m grateful for the time I got to spend this year with members of the 1984-85 Memphis State basketball team. Unforgettable group.

• I’m grateful for Paxton Lynch’s mobility. And his arm strength. And his field vision. So are NFL scouts.

• I’m grateful for the hope Dedric Lawson has restored for Memphis Tiger basketball. An extraordinary, precocious talent. May his drive to improve and develop match his drives to the rim.

• I’m grateful for the local Race for the Cure, and its new home downtown at AutoZone Park. We’re winning the fight against breast cancer, but many more miles to run.

• I’m grateful for the Flyer’s loyal readers and advertisers, who are welcome at our family table every year, one after another.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts on Tiger Football

CREDIT: U of M Athletics

• The University of Memphis lost a certifiable legend with the passing of John Bramlett last week. “The Bull” starred as a Tiger on both the gridiron and baseball diamond, building a reputation somehow tougher than the nickname he carried his entire adult life.

With Bramlett’s death, there are only two living members of an exclusive club of six: Tiger football players to have their jerseys retired. Gone before Bramlett were Charles Greenhill (who died in the 1983 plane crash that killed Memphis coach Rex Dockery), Dave Casinelli (killed in a car wreck in 1987), and Harry Schuh, who died in 2013, two years after his jersey was retired. The U of M program is long overdue for actually displaying the names and numbers of these honored greats at the Liberty Bowl. (There’s a handsome wall display at the practice facility on the south campus, but it’s seen only by members of the program, insiders, and wandering media types.) The city of Memphis owns the Liberty Bowl, but the U of M can display banners on game day as it chooses. The Tigers have rightfully honored six great players, including Pro Football Hall of Fame candidate Isaac Bruce and current Carolina Panther DeAngelo Williams. Let’s see their names and numbers prominently displayed at the stadium their alma mater calls home.

John Bramlett

• Speaking of retired jerseys, the next Tiger to be honored should be former quarterback Danny Wimprine. The Louisiana native passed for 4,445 more yards than any other Memphis quarterback (10,215), and tossed 81 touchdown passes (second on the list is Martin Hankins with 43). We need to start tracking Paxton Lynch’s numbers relative to Wimprine’s. If Lynch stays healthy and plays four seasons, he’ll be the first Tiger quarterback to threaten Wimprine’s records. Through his sophomore season (2002), Wimprine had thrown for 4,149 yards and 37 touchdowns. Seven games into his sophomore campaign, Lynch’s numbers are 3,764 and 19.

• This may be the only time all season you read “American Athletic Conference” and “Power Five” in the same sentence. Because the American is woefully weak at the bottom of the league standings, the polar opposite of anything resembling the likes of the Big Ten, ACC, or, gulp, SEC. You might say, actually, the American includes a “Sour Five,” four of whom play the Memphis Tigers over the next five weeks. (Memphis handled the fifth member of this ignominious group — SMU — last Saturday.) Check out the rankings of the Sour Five in scoring among the 128 FBS teams: 97 (Tulsa, this week’s opponent), 108 (USF), 119 (Tulane), 127 (UConn), and 128 (SMU). At 4-3, Memphis could enjoy its longest stretch of success since winning five of six games to finish the 2007 regular season. (SMU and Tulane were among the victims seven years ago.) Tulsa, it should be noted, is 122nd in points allowed (40.7 per game). Needless to say, a loss to any team not named Temple will leave a sour taste.

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From My Seat Sports

Defeats: Glorious and Not So Much …

It had to be the most rewarding loss in at least two decades of Memphis Tiger football. And it will be talked (and written) about for the next two weeks with language you won’t hear (or see) in many recaps of a defeated team. Justin Fuente’s Tigers did, indeed, fall to UCLA last Saturday night at the Rose Bowl, 42-35. But if you envisioned this Memphis team trading punches with a top-15 program from the Pac 12, you haven’t been to the Liberty Bowl in a long, long time.

The fact that the game was played so late locally, and with such limited TV coverage, gave it a modern word-of-mouth quality. Twitter seemed to red-line with astonished (#gotigersgo) reactions, eyes and minds opening 140 characters at a time. Whether you were packed into a bar with a feed of the game on a flat screen or listening to Jarvis Greer hyperventilate next to Dave Woloshin on the radio broadcast, you experienced the football version of that first Rocky Balboa-Apollo Creed affair. By the fourth quarter, when the Tigers tied things at 35 on an interception return, I honestly expected Greer to scream into his microphone, “Cut me, Mick!”

When’s the last time a Memphis football team benefited from a huge penalty call? The Bruins had a touchdown taken off the board in the fourth quarter on a personal foul penalty. That kind of break doesn’t happen to the football Tigers. Well, that kind of break didn’t happen to the football Tigers. And that’s the catch: There’s a past-tense quality to misery in this program.

The best part of the next two weeks — as the Tigers prepare to host their nemesis from Middle Tennessee — will be how dissatisfied the Memphis players and coaches act. They lost. UCLA may or may not reach college football’s first playoff in January, but the Bruins were good enough to edge the Tigers, and the goal around here is to no longer be “edged.” By anyone. There won’t be 70,000 fans at the Liberty Bowl when the Tigers return to action on September 20th, but every fan there will look at the team in blue differently after the events of September 6th in Pasadena. For the time being, Memphis football fans can be forgiven if they relish a defeat.

• Does winning matter in minor-league baseball?

This question has been debated for years, often over a $7.00 beer and heaping basket of nachos. So let’s end the debate, once and for all. Performance on the field — wins and losses — means squat when it comes to drawing crowds in the minors. Just take a look at this year’s Pacific Coast League playoffs.

Despite winning 79 games (third-most in franchise history), the Memphis Redbirds finished ninth in the 16-team PCL with an attendance average (tickets sold) of 5,693. (Note: AutoZone Park lost five dates this season to inclement weather.) And the Redbirds’ figure is tops among the four teams in the PCL playoffs. Omaha averaged 5,628, Reno 5,270, and Las Vegas finished dead last in the league with an average of 4,640. Then you have the Albuquerque Isotopes, third-worst team in the PCL with a record of 62-80. The Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate averaged 8,066 tickets sold, third-most in the league. That beer must be extra cold in New Mexico.

Need a broader view of attendance, relative to the Redbirds’ on-field success? Check out total attendance for two seasons since the economic collapse of 2008. In 2009, Memphis finished 77-67 and won its second PCL championship. Attendance that season was 474,764. Three years later, the team was dreadful (57-87), but sold 493,706 tickets.

And how does the parent club, the St. Louis Cardinals, feel about things? Pitcher Tyler Lyons won six straight starts for the Redbirds during the team’s playoff push this season. Instead of starting a game for Memphis in the PCL playoffs, Lyons has sat in the Cardinal bullpen — part of the club’s September roster expansion — and pitched a total of one inning this month.

The day after Game 1 of the Redbirds’ series with Omaha last week (a Memphis loss), the Cardinals recalled first-baseman Xavier Scruggs, the team’s steadiest bat over that two-month drive to the postseason. (Scruggs started that night for St. Louis in a win at Milwaukee.) As Omaha was eliminating the Redbirds last Saturday night at AutoZone Park, a total of 46 Memphis home runs — hit by Scruggs and outfielder Randal Grichuk — sat on the Cardinal bench in Milwaukee. If major-league clubs don’t care about winning games in the minors, should you?

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Arghhh!

Every year, when it’s time for our Memphis Tiger football cover story, I jokingly threaten to make the cover an image of Lucy from “Peanuts” pulling the football out from under Charlie Brown, as the poor fellow yells, “Arrghhh!” But that would be wrong.

The Flyer has a history with Tiger football that dates back to the early 1990s, when then-editor, Dennis Freeland, began covering the games in a weekly column and writing preseason cover stories about the team. Freeland truly cared about the program and wrote about it with dedication and tempered affection.

Just prior to Freeland’s sad passing in 2002, publisher Kenneth Neill, a longtime Tiger football fan, took on the job of covering the team’s games for a year. Perhaps his most memorable moment came in a column after a Tiger loss to lowly University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB), in which he bemoaned “losing to a bunch of pissants.” Needless to say, UAB Pissant fans were not amused, though it’s certainly a better team name than Blazers.

Since then, Frank Murtaugh has covered Tiger football and basketball for the Flyer. This week’s issue is his 11th preseason football cover story. He covered the Coach Tommy West “glory years,” when the team went to five bowls in the mid-2000s; he covered Coach Larry Porter’s sad-trombone “revolution,” when the team won three games in two years. (In one of his more foolish moves, Porter famously built a wall around the program’s practices and kept the media at arm’s length.) Foot, meet bullet.

When current coach, Justin Fuente, was hired three years ago, the hope was that the team would soon turn things around. Fuente has gone 7-17 in his first two years, in the process losing to such traditional powers as Middle Tennessee, Tennessee-Martin, and Temple. Attendance is lagging, cynicism about the program abounds. But hope springs eternal: The university’s slogan for the 2014 season is “Wait ‘Til This Year!”

That audacious slogan aside, it’s a football program that direly needs wins — and fans. So when the Flyer, which has covered the program for 20 years, asks for a few minutes with the coach or a couple of players for a cover photo for a story coming out the week of the team’s home opener, you’d think that program would be falling all over itself to cooperate.

But no. No posed photos allowed, says the university. Seriously? With 200,000-plus weekly readers, the Flyer is the second-largest print medium in Memphis. Wouldn’t a snazzy, clever Tiger football cover in hundreds of Flyer racks and boxes all over town help get people excited about the season? Might it not even put a few more butts in seats in the cavernous Liberty Bowl on Saturday? Come on, son, think. The Crimson Tide, you’re not.

I swear, if the team doesn’t win and/or lighten up on its photo policy, next August, I’ll be the one saying “Wait ’til this year, Charlie Brown.” And they’ll be the ones saying, “Arrghhh!”

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Cover Feature News

Is This the Year for Memphis Football?

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Wait ’til this year.

As far as teases are measured, the University of Memphis football program couldn’t have picked four more tantalizing words than their marketing slogan for 2014. The Tiger fan base is accustomed to waiting: It’s been five years now since a bowl appearance, and six seasons since a winning campaign (7-6 in 2007). And it’s been worse in the recent past: eight consecutive losing seasons from 1995 through 2002. If you’re counting — and we have to include the 2-10 mess of 2006 that ended a three-year winning streak — that’s 15 losing football seasons over the past 19. Memphis football fans wait. And wait.

Until this year?

The first step in this process — for Tiger players, coaches, and fans — is putting the dreadful end to last season behind for good. Sorry to open the wound, but to summarize: After winning three games and losing four others by less than eight points, the Tigers were declawed in their last two (a 41-25 loss to Temple at the Liberty Bowl and a 45-10 drubbing at UConn). These are not the kind of memories that help an off-season. To a man, the Tiger players say they have put those losses in history’s dustbin, but within motivational reach.

“[Those losses] motivate the team a lot,” says senior cornerback Bobby McCain, one of the potential team stars who will determine how quickly the lingering memories can be erased. “We wanted to finish strong, and we didn’t. Mentally, physically, emotionally, we just weren’t there. It was somewhat fatigue. But morale had shifted. We knew after the Louisville game, there would be no bowl game. We have to do better. That’s not a good look.”

“Let’s just scrap that [2013 season],” adds senior tailback Brandon Hayes, back after being granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA. “We could have had a much better season. We’re taking Austin Peay [Saturday] first, not looking ahead. If we start looking ahead at UCLA [September 6th], who knows what might happen?”

Larry Kuzniewski

Defensive end Martin Ifedi leads a veteran Tiger line

The 2014 Tigers will be a veteran team. (It’s been a while since those words were written.) In addition to familiar faces in the offensive skill positions — we’ll get to those later — the Tigers will have a defense built around three players with more than 20 career starts (defensive end Martin Ifedi, linebacker Charles Harris, and McCain) and four more with at least 12 (linemen Ricky Hunter and Terry Redden, linebacker Ryan Coleman, and cornerback Andrew Gaines). This is a unit that, through 10 games last season, ranked 16th in the country in total defense (and 23rd in points allowed). Of course, it’s a defense that — after the blowouts against Temple and UConn — fell to 39th in the country (44th in points allowed). Coach Justin Fuente, defensive coordinator Barry Odom, and an entire fan base are betting on that 10-game sampling being the real deal, and those final two an ugly anomaly.

“We showed last season that we can compete against any team we line up to play,” says the senior Ifedi, a candidate for the Bednarik Award (given to the nation’s top defender) and the Lombardi Award (top lineman or linebacker). “No matter the name — Louisville, UCF — we were close. We just fell short.”

Senior tailback Brandon Hayes and cornerback Bobby McCain (21) will play prominent roles for Coach Justin Fuente

Ifedi enters the season one sack shy of the Memphis career record (Tramont Lawless had 21 from 1996 to 1999), and he isn’t shy about the preseason recognition he’s received or the thought of improving on his sack total of a year ago (11.5). “When I got here as a freshman,” he says, “I thought about that sack record to myself, jokingly. But now it’s reality. It will be a big accomplishment for me. I need to dominate every game, play up to my ability. I want to win one of those awards; show the nation and the conference that I’m definitely one of the best.”

Says Fuente, “[Martin] has got to be a really good player on a good defense that, in turn, becomes a good football team. Then he’ll get every accolade he deserves. If you start freelancing, that’s when you struggle. I don’t think he’ll do that.”

Larry Kuzniewski

Coach Justin Fuente

Ifedi should combine with Redden and Hunter to give Memphis one of its strongest defensive lines in years. Add freshman Ernest Suttles to the group — Suttles impressed Fuente with his off-season work — and Memphis, dare we suggest it, has depth on the defensive front. “Terry Redden’s as good a defensive player as we have,” says Fuente. “When he’s in there, it’s a different ball game, because you can’t single-block him.”

“We have high hopes and high expectations for the defense,” says McCain, who led the Tigers with six interceptions (in just nine games) last season, the most by a Memphis player in 12 years. “We want to have a chip on our shoulder, to have the game in our hands in the fourth quarter.”

Joe Murphy

Bobby McCain

McCain and Gaines will be joined in the secondary by two more upper-classmen: safeties Reggis Ball and Fritz Etienne. McCain sees his unit as a complementary piece to the line and, not incidentally, the linebackers. (The Tigers’ hardest hitter may be senior linebacker Tank Jakes.) “You can win ball games by cutting down on big plays,” says McCain. “The three units work together well. We know we’re going to get pressure from the front seven. And if we’re leading in the fourth quarter, they’re gonna throw the ball.”

The Tiger schedule is packed with game-changing quarterbacks, ready and able to stretch the field early and late: UCLA’s Brett Hundley, Houston’s John O’Korn, Temple’s P.J. Walker. Will Ifedi and friends be able to reduce the time these signal-callers have to gaze down field? And will McCain and friends be able to pounce once the ball is in the air? These are questions that, when answered, will determine how close the U of M may be to bowl eligibility.

Larry Kuzniewski

Paxton Lynch (in red) and Brandon Hayes offer hope from the Tiger backfield.

There will also be familiar faces on offense, but Fuente cautions against using the same “veteran” tag his defense has earned. “I worry about the balance,” he says. “[The defense and offense] are two different groups. An older, veteran group on defense, but still a young group offensively, if you look at them as a whole. There are guys who have played, but they’re still young. We don’t have to pull them right out of high school and put them on the field anymore. But there’s a different balance there.”

Hayes will provide leadership from his tailback position, and there’s probably no player on the Tiger roster more grateful to be in uniform for the 2014 season. Having gone through the standard farewell rites of departing seniors last fall, he learned during the off-season that the NCAA had awarded him a sixth year of eligibility (in addition to a redshirt season, Hayes missed the 2010 campaign with a knee injury). He’s climbed his way to the top of the running back depth chart with a work ethic Fuente has cited as an example for two years now.

“It’s a blessing,” says Hayes. “I told myself that if I get a year back, I’m going to train differently, eat differently. I’ve got my body right, up to 210 pounds [from 198]. A lot of speed work, a lot of hills; working on my breakaway speed. I need to finish runs better. What might be a 26-yard run, I need to make it 56. Or if it’s 35, I need to take it the whole way.”

Of course, for the Tigers to succeed, the inspirational components of Hayes’ story need to translate to the field. After leading the team in rushing in 2012 (576 yards), Hayes ran for 860 yards last season and carried the ball 201 times without fumbling. He aims to become the first player since DeAngelo Williams (2002-05) to lead Memphis in rushing three straight seasons.

The receiving corps will feature no fewer than five veterans (Keiwone Malone, Joe Craig, Sam Craft, Mose Frazier, and Tevin Jones) and a redshirt freshman (Anthony Miller, a record-breaker at Christian Brothers High School) Fuente is convinced will stretch the field. But who will be quarterback Paxton Lynch’s primary target? Craig’s yardage total last season (338) was the lowest to lead Memphis since Bunkie Perkins (remember him?) had 314 in 2000. The best hope would seem to be competition driving six receivers hungry for footballs slung their way.

Fuente emphasizes this very priority, suggesting the receivers have to play better as a group this fall. And the same goes for the entire squad. “Will we be able to eliminate the petty jealousies that tear away from an organization or team?” he asks. “Will we be disciplined enough to hold the rope and prepare every single week?”

No position will be scrutinized more than quarterback, and Lynch returns as one of those “veteran-but-young” players, a redshirt sophomore who started all 12 games a year ago, to somewhat mixed results. His 2,056 passing yards were more than Danny Wimprine had as a redshirt-freshman in 2001. But Lynch averaged only 5.9 yards per attempt (Wimprine’s figure was 6.8 in ’01). He threw nine touchdown passes and was intercepted 10 times. Fuente is convinced Lynch is the quarterback this team needs.

“He’s continued to get stronger,” says Fuente. “He feels more comfortable in his own skin, his role, comfortable with the older players. He’s more athletic than anyone talks about, especially being so tall [6’6″]. He’s gotten better mechanically throwing the football, and he’s got good vision. He can see everything.”

Lynch feels comfortable in his quarterback shoes, but intends to make his impact felt team-wide in 2014. “I need to be more confident in myself,” says Lynch. “As a leader, everyone is looking at you. I could have prepared myself more [last year], and I’ve been working on that. When I make a mistake, I can’t put my head down. I’m diving into the playbook pretty hard. I have to know what everyone else on the field is doing … and everyone on the other side of the ball, too.”

“Paxton has matured,” says Hayes. “He knows what everybody is doing. He’s not timid. He’s got veteran qualities. Somebody messes up, he lets you know. I’m really excited to have seen him grow.”

Adds Fuente, “I’m just as interested in the other 10 around him playing better, to help him out. I’ve been encouraged by what I’ve seen so far.” Tackle Al Bond is the only senior in the offensive-line mix, a unit that must gain traction — literally and otherwise — for the offense to improve measurably. “They just have to get used to the [fast] tempo,” says Lynch. “It’s harder on those big guys. If they get in shape, we’ll be all right. I trust them. We just have to keep pushing each other to get better.”

Despite the loss of record-setting punter Tom Hornsey — the 2013 Ray Guy Award winner — the Tigers’ special teams should help win a game or two. Four capable return men are back (Craig, Craft, Malone, and McCain), and in sophomore Jake Elliott, the Tigers have one of the best young kickers in the country. Elliott earned first-team all-conference recognition last fall when he converted 16 of 18 field-goal attempts, including eight of nine from beyond 40 yards. A still-growing program must win the close games before it starts dreaming of any laughers.

“Nobody thinks we can beat [UCLA or Ole Miss],” says Ifedi with an audible snarl. “This is good. We’ll punch them in the mouth and they won’t know what hit them. Memphis is not going to be an easy game for you; I guarantee that.”

Adds McCain, “I’m gonna make sure the mindset of the whole team is to win ball games. Not just go in and put up a fight, lose by three. We want to win the ball game. I want to go to a bowl game. Doesn’t matter which one, as long as we get into the postseason mix.”

“My expectations for this squad are higher,” says Fuente. “But you have to balance that. The nonconference schedule is a stretch for us. We’re still teaching our guys how to lead, what a football program is supposed to be on a consistent basis. I think we’ve made huge strides.”

So … wait ’til this year? “It’s year,” emphasizes Fuente. “The entire season. It’s not wait for the second game or third game. Let’s get to the end of it and see how it stacks up. Our kids are ready to go. Let’s go see how good we can get. We’d love to take another step in front of a lot of fans.”

What the Schedule Holds

With Ole Miss back on the schedule, the SEC is again on the Memphis radar after a two-year hiatus. Dating back to 1997 (the year after the Tigers’ upset of Tennessee at the Liberty Bowl), the Tigers are 2-25 against the country’s most powerful conference. Whether or not the SEC stays on the schedule remains to be seen. “I’m okay with playing one stretch game,” says Fuente. “That’s what you’ll see from us in the future. My concern is the league; where are we in the league? Can we build our facilities and compete in this league? I have no inferiority complex with the Southeastern Conference. Our job is to be Sprite, not Coke and not Pepsi. To build a program that’s competitive in our realm.” — FM

August 30 — Austin Peay (6 p.m.)

September 6 — at UCLA (9 p.m.)

September 20 — Middle Tennessee

September 27 — at Ole Miss

October 4 — at Cincinnati

October 11 — Houston

October 25 — at SMU

October 31 (Fri) — Tulsa (7 p.m.)

November 7 (Fri) — at Temple (6:30 p.m.)

November 15 — at Tulane

November 22 — USF

November 29 — UConn