But once the final horn sounded in the 2019 AAC Championship game, those previous nightmares were long forgotten. It was finally Memphis’ time. Memphis’ moment.
Memphis was the champion. It was on its way to the Cotton Bowl.
It was on top, and it was seemingly there to stay.
The pandemic started a few months later, which triggered the departures of both Kenneth Gainwell and Damonte Coxie. And this was after pieces like Bryce Huff and Antonio Gibson were lost to graduation and the NFL Draft.
By the time the 2020 season began, Ryan Silverfield was coaching a much-depleted Memphis team inside of an empty Liberty Bowl.
The Present
This brings us to May 2023. In just a few months, Memphis will face what is perhaps its most important season to date.
Memphis has finished each of the previous two seasons 6-6 overall and 3-5 in conference play.
Both campaigns started with a lot of promise. In 2021, Memphis started 3-0 with a win over Mississippi State. In 2022, the Tigers started 4-1, includinga blowout win at Navy, where Silverfield gave this inspiring message in his postgame interview.
"First and foremost, let me give our thoughts and prayers to the city of Memphis, it's been a hard week. Hopefully we can be a little bit of a shining light during [this] hard week that we've gone through."
Because of this, both NIL funds and general support for the program are quite low. Something needs to happen if Memphis wants to maintain its status as a future Power 5 contender.
With all of this in mind, it’s probably fair to say that Silverfield’s job is at stake in 2023. Another 6-6 season would likely push him out the door.
And despite all the criticism Silverfield gets, nobody truly wants that to happen. First off, it would cost the program money that it really doesn’t need to be spending. More importantly, though, Silverfield is a great personality that knows how to connect with and get players. If you don’t believe me, check out the locker room’s reaction when Memphis announced that Silverfield was replacing Norvell.
The Redemption?
There’s no other way to put it. Silverfield’s Tigers have everything to gain, yet everything to lose in 2023. It’s up to Memphis to respond accordingly.
For the team to actually improve in 2023, though, it firstly needs more out of Seth Henigan. Henigan hasn’t been bad by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he’s been quite spectacular considering the circumstances he’s been thrown into.
But for Memphis to win more games while playing in what’s going to be a tougher AAC than most expect, Henigan must be more productive. He must make less mistakes and more winning plays.
It’s not all on the quarterback, however. The rest of the offense built around him must improve dramatically.
Someone must emerge as the team’s lead running back if Tim Cramsey’s run-first system is to work properly. Mississippi State transfer Ke’Travion Hargrove looked very promising at Friday Night Stripes, but he still has to continuously stand out amongst the other backs. And if he doesn’t, someone else like Jevyon Ducker must.
Memphis returns some familiar faces in the receiving core, namely Joseph Scates. His ceiling is as high as anyone’s if he can shore up his drop issues. The most exciting transfer wideout is DeMeer Blankumsee from Toledo. The speedy Blankumsee is a big play waiting to happen. He showed this in the spring game when he outran the entire defense to score a touchdown for the gray team.
The offensive line has been rebuilt with a slew of transfers. These include Chris Morris from Hutchison C.C. and Xavier Hill from LSU. Jonah Gambill and Jacob Likesare the most notable returners.
But, regardless of who’s out there, the offensive line has to be much better than it was in 2022. Simply put, the line was quite poor last year. And that has to change.
Plenty of familiar faces return defensively, including Jaylon Allen, Greg Rubin and Geoffrey Cantin-Arku. The defense overall looked dominant in the spring game. Despite its relative youth, it should be a good unit.
After watching the Tigers play football over the last two seasons, it’s hard to be optimistic. There definitely seems to be more bad than good right now. It’s more than fair if you have low expectations for the 2023 Memphis Tigers.
But, remember that Memphis has been through worse before. And afterwards, the program went on its best run yet.
As dark as the future may seem right now, one can have reasonable hope that history will begin to repeat itself in 2023.
Senior Editor for Tiger Blueprint. See more of my work on Bluff City Media, where I’m the Memphis basketball beat writer, the Men in Hoodies podcast on Apple and Spotify and on “Sports with Roman Cleary” live on University of Memphis Radio—The ROAR Fridays from 3-4 p.m. during the fall and spring.
