• Defense delivers. With a third of their season in the books, the Memphis Tigers are still determining this year’s playmakers. With star power, particularly on offense, a larger crowd than 23,203 shows up for a football game on a sunny afternoon in late September. Seth Henigan is among the best quarterbacks in the American Athletic Conference, if not the entire country. But he can’t sell tickets by himself. Tiger coach Ryan Silverfield likes to say his running backs — primarily Brandon Thomas, Jevyon Ducker, and Asa Martin — are “running hard,” but that’s not quite the same as running like Darrell Henderson or Kenneth Gainwell (each currently carrying footballs in the NFL).
But stars are emerging on the defensive side of the ball for Memphis. Early in the third quarter of Saturday’s win over North Texas, senior defensive end Jaylon Allen intercepted a Mean Green pass (on a ball tipped by Tiger cornerback Greg Rubin), and ran it back 39 yards for a touchdown to give Memphis a 27-13 lead. Allen, it should be noted, sacked UNT quarterback Austin Aune in the first half. Then early in the fourth quarter, with the Tiger lead down to seven points, senior linebacker Xavier (Zay) Cullens delivered another “pick six,” this one for 37 yards. The two defensive touchdowns were vital in a 10-point victory and suggest this year’s playmakers may emerge when the opponent snaps the ball.
• 59 forever. I’m rather thrilled for the family, friends, and many fans of the late Danton Barto, who will become the seventh Tiger football player to have his jersey (number 59) retired. We lost Barto way too soon, a victim last year of covid-19. But his legacy, to say the least, lives on. It’s hard to imagine Barto’s program record of 473 career tackles ever being topped. (The most by a Memphis player since Barto played his final game in 1993: 416 by Kamal Shakir.)
“The defense stepped up in a big way, and what a day to do so,” said Tiger coach Ryan Silverfield after Saturday’s win. He noted how pleased Barto would have been by the way Memphis won with big plays on defense. Barto is the third Tiger defensive player to receive the ultimate honor, joining John Bramlett, who had his jersey retired in 2013, and the late Charles Greenhill, who died in the 1983 plane crash that also killed Memphis coach Rex Dockery.
• Testy Temple. The Tigers’ history with Temple dates back only to 2013, just seven games. But the Owls have delivered a pair of painful recent defeats to Memphis, both in Philadelphia. In 2019, a controversial no-catch call late in the game cost the Tigers the win and, quite possibly, an undefeated regular season. Then last year, Memphis literally fumbled the game away, two turnovers proving to be the difference in a three-point Temple win. Henigan was asked after Saturday’s win if last year’s game is a motivator for this Saturday’s clash and he denied it is . . . but only after mentioning those fumbles.
The Owls are averaging merely 18 points per game, but they’re allowing only 15 (good for 18th in the country). Their two wins have come against Lafayette and Massachusetts, hardly the kind that shape a season. The Owls are 1-2 at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, their win coming in 2016 (Mike Norvell’s first season as head coach). With a Friday-night visit from Houston looming (October 7th), the Tigers will be tested Saturday by a familiar villain. A 4-1 record entering the Houston game would look a lot better than 3-2.