Entering last Saturday’s game at the Liberty Bowl against 23rd-ranked SMU, the Memphis Tigers had won exactly one football game in 48 days, almost precisely seven weeks. That’s a lot of season to spend not celebrating a victory. So the Tigers’ 28-25 victory was as desperately needed as it was unlikely. (The Mustangs entered the game with only one loss and averaging 42 points per game.) Two factors swung the contest.
First, the Memphis defense played a different brand of football than we’d seen over the Tigers’ first eight games. They played heavy, with a season-high five sacks — by five different players — of SMU quarterback Tanner Mordecai. The Tigers forced relatively short possessions for the Mustangs, allowing a total of 57 plays (compared with the Tigers’ 91). The Mustang running game never found legs (61 total yards), allowing the Memphis defense to aggressively rush the passer. This paid off, with dividends. Best of all, the Tigers forced turnovers on SMU’s first possession (a Quindell Johnson fumble recovery) and, most crucially, on the Mustangs’ final possession (a Rodney Owens interception).
And secondly, Memphis was scintillating on fourth down. On each of their three second-half touchdown drives, the Tigers converted a fourth-down pass play, the last one a direct-snap to running back Dreke Clark, who lofted a perfect scoring strike to tight end Sean Dykes. That play gave Memphis a 28-10 lead with just under 12 minutes to play. It proved to be just enough for the win.
Said Tiger coach Ryan Silverfield after the game, “I told the entire team [Friday], ‘We’re going to be aggressive. We’re going to empty our chamber.’ We called a trick play, and if it didn’t work, [the media] would be roasting me right now. It was just great execution. And the way our defense played, it gave our offense even more confidence to go for it. We needed to be the aggressor in all three phases. I’m not sure I’ve ever had that as the key to victory.”
• The Memphis program has been blessed with outstanding kicking over its recent stretch of success, both Jake Elliott and Riley Patterson splitting the uprights with regularity, and from distance. Those days are over, and the Tigers are feeling the void. Joe Doyle (a natural punter) has been given field-goal duty, but he missed twice Saturday (from 28 and 37 yards), and has made only seven field goals (on 12 attempts) in the Tigers’ nine games. Former Tiger coach Justin Fuente liked to emphasize how easily special teams could lose a football game. With Memphis having lost two games by three points and another by six, that warning has become somewhat of an explanation for the Tigers’ 5-4 record. It’s not just the missed field goals; it’s choosing to not even attempt them. Saturday’s scintillating fourth-down plays may well have been field-goal attempts with Patterson in uniform. Had any one of those pass completions not been made, the Tigers lose to SMU.
• The Tigers lost at Temple, 34-31, on October 2nd. This Saturday’s opponent, East Carolina, beat the Owls last weekend, 45-3. Yikes. Memphis has played the Pirates (5-4) only twice since the American Athletic Conference was formed in 2013 (the Tigers won big in 2017 and ’18.) There’s virtually no “feel” to this matchup. But Memphis and ECU are each a win shy of bowl eligibility, so the teams will play with urgency, with intent. Pirates running back Keaton Mitchell leads the AAC with 902 rushing yards, so Tiger defensive coordinator Mike MacIntyre will surely adjust his unit’s approach, even after the stellar performance against SMU. As for the Tigers’ ground game, Brandon Thomas has been described as “day-to-day” by Silverfield as he nurses an injury suffered at UCF on October 22nd. His return would diversify play-calling for Memphis and, hopefully, make fourth-down decisions less frequent.
