After a proper incubation period of four-to-six years, a Memphis head coach hatches into a power-conference head coach, and regrettably for the current edition of the Tigers, this process recently came to its natural conclusion once more.
Ryan Silverfield is the head man at Arkansas now, and he took several of his Memphis assistants with him, including the offensive coordinator. The Tigers will be led by defensive backs coach Reggie Howard for the bowl game, and a couple of the remaining assistants have been bumped to co-offensive coordinator.
Advertisement
But Memphis isn’t facing much turnover on the field heading in to Friday, and that’s the most important thing. The offense is led by veteran quarterback Brendon Lewis, who transferred in after a couple of seasons with the other Wolf Pack. When healthy, Lewis is a dangerous dual-threat weapon, and has over 600 rushing yards on the season.
He’s also completed nearly 70% of his passes, with 15 touchdown throws against six interceptions. He has been dealing with a lingering ankle injury over the back half of the schedule, though I’d imagine the three weeks he’s had off have helped quite a bit there.
Lewis keys a ground attack that ranks among the nation’s best in both success rate and explosive play rate, with four guys with 50 carries or more this fall. Sutton Smith and Greg Desrosiers have split carries out of the backfield and have combined for about 1200 rushing yards, as well as 14 touchdowns.
Lewis’ favorite target at receiver is Cortez Braham Jr. (6’2, 201), who has 63 grabs for 889 yards and eight touchdowns. (Braham also came over from Nevada.) The Tigers have also gotten a good year out of Jamari Hawkins (5’9, 185), who has 34 grabs for 591 yards (17.4 yd/rec) and a touchdown.
Advertisement
Memphis has been very good on early downs, in terms of EPA/play, but when the offense does go bust, it tends to do so spectacularly. The Tigers rate poorly in both stuff rate allowed and average third-down distance.
Defensively the Tigers have held up reasonably well on the ground but have a number of issues defending the pass. They rank in the bottom 25% nationally in yards per dropback, passing success rate, passing EPA/play, and passing explosive play rate. They’ve been able to compensate a bit by picking off 12 passes, though they haven’t nabbed one since Halloween (and haven’t won a game since then, either).
This bowl game is a matchup of good offenses against good defenses, and neither team has seen many roster defections to this point (this will change dramatically next week), which means we are getting a bowl game with two teams that are actually close to full strength. Whose defense will come up slightly larger than the other’s? There’s no telling. We’ll find out in about 24 hours.
