• “It’s been a hard week.” My favorite part of the Tigers’ win at Navy came immediately after the game when Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield choked up in responding to a question from the CBS Sports reporter. “Memphis is a great city, and the 901 will keep fighting.” I, for one, have been performing my job duties — be they mundane or somewhat important — in a fog since Eliza Fletcher was abducted on September 2nd, a fog thickened by the shooting spree that briefly locked down the city five days later. There are lost members of our community who won’t be coming back. And I find myself missing them, hurting especially for their families. Aching emotionally.
So I turn to sports now and then. But don’t you know each and every member of the Tiger football team’s staff and players has been operating in a fog, too. Fletcher’s abduction happened on the University of Memphis campus, for crying out loud. Most painful, for me, is the fact that the charged killers in these cases are Memphians. How do we reconcile that, we “the 901”? A football game feels like we’re all rooting together, our entire city, our entire small town. And a win feels good, especially the season’s first for Silverfield and his team. But then comes Sunday, followed by Monday. Probably a hard week ahead.
• No Flyer cover jinx. For the first time in memory, we put a defensive player on the cover of our annual Memphis football preview. Based on the way Quindell Johnson played in the win over Navy, you might want to hang on to that issue. The senior safety delivered 11 solo tackles and made a one-handed interception in the Tiger end zone to stifle a Navy scoring threat. It’s rare we see true playmakers on the defensive side of the ball, but Johnson has that air about him.
Arkansas State will pose a very different problem for Johnson and friends, of course. Navy ran the ball 58 times (a number that leads to high tackle totals) and only passed 11. The Memphis defense did more than bend in the opener at Mississippi State. Can it force the Red Wolves off the field long enough for Tiger quarterback Seth Henigan to put up another 400-yard game? May be the difference Saturday night.
• A month of home cooking. Chuck Stobart was calling the shots the last time Memphis hosted four consecutive home games. The 1994 Tigers swept all four, beating Arkansas, Tulane, Arkansas State, and Cincinnati. What jumps out in looking back 28 years? The scoring . . . and how little there was. The “Ground Chuck” Tigers won those four games despite scoring no more than 16 points in three of the contests. The Memphis defense allowed a total 24 points in the four games . . . a figure we’re likely to see Arkansas State put up (win or lose) this Saturday.
The Tigers’ season will be half over at the end of this home stand, which concludes with a Friday-night clash against Houston on October 7th. The Cougars, of course, were picked to win the American Athletic Conference in the preseason media poll. It’s a time for the Tigers to dig in at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium (where they lost two games last season) and re-establish a discomfort level for opponents. They’ll need to score more than 16 points to win games, but keep that ’94 run on the bulletin board as a motivator.
