“Remember the Cougars.” Last Friday’s fourth-quarter collapse against Houston could linger as a stench over the Memphis program the rest of this season, perhaps the rest of Ryan Silverfield’s tenure as head coach. Or it could become a rallying cry, of a sort, a reminder of how much can be gained, but the cost of a lapse. The Cougars are clearly better than their record (2-3) suggested at kickoff last week. It takes a very good team to lead the Cougars by 19 points in the final quarter. Memphis is that team. Memphis is also the team that coughed up that lead like a Bengal-sized hairball.
What Silverfield, his staff, and players must avoid is dismissing the collapse as water under the bridge. Because the Tiger fan base won’t. This program is at a crossroads, eager for bigger things (starting with the league in which it plays) but unable to get 30,000 fans into a stadium that seats more than 50,000. Silverfield must sell a better product than the one 28,000 fans saw on October 7th. I’m convinced he has a better product … unless that stench truly settles in.
Gabe’s Game. My stack of Memphis football media guides reveals no previous Tiger to have pulled off a trifecta like that of fifth-year senior Gabriel Rogers against Houston: a rush, pass, and reception of at least 15 yards each. A sad footnote to the fourth-quarter meltdown is that a Tiger victory would have likely been remembered as “the Gabriel Rogers game.” He was that extraordinary, particularly in tossing a 41-yard touchdown pass to Asa Martin (after receiving a lateral from quarterback Seth Henigan) to give the Tigers that 19-point lead (26-7) early in the final quarter.
Rogers leads the Tigers with 302 receiving yards (on 22 catches), and he put up 71 of those yards against the Cougars. He also gained 23 rushing yards on just two carries. He was that fabled “triple threat” of lore, only in a game his team gave away. But halfway through the 2022 campaign, the Tigers have a front-runner for the playmaker tag. Keep your eyes on number 9 when Memphis snaps the ball.
Recognizing a rival. A longtime problem for the Memphis program: No annual “rivalry game.” No, the Tigers and Ole Miss — or Mississippi State — aren’t rivals in the classic college football sense. (A series must be more competitive over a longer period of time.) The Tigers built up some rivalry with UCF and Houston, but both the Knights and Cougars are departing the American Athletic Conference for the Big 12 next year. In searching for a familiar foe that has tested Memphis for a couple of decades (or three), it’s the East Carolina Pirates. Motivation shouldn’t be a problem this Saturday in Greenville.
The Pirates and Tigers went back and forth last season at the Liberty Bowl, ECU prevailing in overtime, but only when Memphis failed on a two-point attempt to win. The Tigers trail the series, 16-8, primarily due to a dominant seven-year winning streak by East Carolina when the Memphis program found itself staggering for leadership (2006-2012). One of two Tiger teams will show up this weekend: One still reeling from the program’s worst collapse in memory, or a group mobilized to prove it’s not that team. East Carolina feels like the right opponent for such a clash.
