After falling short on national TV against Tulane Friday night, the Memphis Tigers and coach Ryan Silverfield have to look forward to a road matchup with East Carolina and their strong passing offense.
Silverfield spoke to the media Monday morning following the loss to Tulane about what went wrong and what the team is doing to be prepared for ECU.
"Our focus is completely turned to a East Carolina team that is playing very well," Silverfield said.
His quarterback, Brendon Lewis, left the game early against Tulane, and backup Arrington Maiden closed the game for the Tigers. When asked if he had an update on Lewis, he said he did not. He did provide some context on his thought process for handling Lewis' in-game injuries.
"It's finding that fine balance," Silverfield said. "Unfortunately, he's been banged up, so this has been going on for quite a while throughout this whole season."
Maiden, a redshirt freshman, got his first career touchdown in the losing effort Friday night. Earlier this season at UAB, coach Silverfield opted for true freshman AJ Hill instead of Maiden, citing practice performances from that week. He reiterated that they would evaluate the backup spot on a game to game basis.
"How we view those in talking to AJ and Arrington, it's the situations that we're in in a game," Silverfield said. "With the week of prep, what the gameplan may call for, what the defense is giving us, and we continue to assess that."
When asked about the slow starts to games, Silverfield gave some input on the challenges in preparing for each opponent.
"We prepare then for situational football. We're seeing unique offensive plays that we had not seen," Silverfield said. "Tulane had shown to be an 8% blitz team, and they come out and blitzed us 80% of the time."
As for the Tigers' next opponent, coach Silverfield cited the atmosphere at East Carolina as a reason for excitement. Memphis' road schedule has not had raucous crowds so far this season, but he anticipates a loud environment Saturday.
The Pirates rank No. 9 in the country in third down conversation rate offensively, and No. 11 in third down stoppage rate defensively this season. They are also a top-25 passing offense in the country.
"Third down is a massive, massive part of success in college football," Silverfield said. "We'll practice it and try to find ways to better execute it."
The Tigers still have a path to a third consecutive 10-win season, and that starts Saturday in Greenville, NC against East Carolina at 3 p.m. on ESPNU. Coach Silverfield hopes to have his team prepared for anything.
"We're going to go into this expecting the unexpected," Silverfield said.
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