Here we go again. Barring a miracle, another year will come and go without the Memphis football program in the American Conference championship game.
Ryan Silverfield's Tigers flirted with defeat yet again Friday night, but, unlike their games against Arkansas and South Florida, Memphis could not complete a fourth quarter comeback against Tulane. In an inverse of last year's Memphis victory in New Orleans, the Green Wave all but ended the Tigers' hopes of the College Football Playoff on Memphis' home turf.
Now, at 8-2, and 4-2 in the American, the Tigers will need a lot of help to have any hope of competing for the conference title, let alone the College Football Playoff.
The Tulane loss followed a familiar and frustrating script. The Tigers defense struggled in the first half, allowing 35 points. Those 35 first half points were more points than Tulane had scored in a game this season and the most points Memphis had allowed in a game this season. The Tigers were a different team in the second half, holding Tulane to 3 points and just 93 yards.
“We’ve been in this situation before, and we knew what we had to do," linebacker Sam Brumfield said about the team's mindset heading into the second half down 35-17 Friday night.
While Memphis was able to find magic against Arkansas and South Florida, overcoming double-digit deficits in each of those games, their luck ran out Friday night, as a 15-0 fourth quarter was not enough to beat Tulane.
“There are no moral victories by any stretch of the imagination,” Silverfield said after the game.
This year wasn't supposed to be a playoff caliber season. The Tigers brought in a whopping 78 new players after all, but everything was there for the taking for Memphis, as evidenced by the College Football Playoff committee slotting the Tigers into the No. 12 spot in their first rankings of the season.
And yet, here we are again. The Tigers find themselves needing help from the rest of the league to have a shot at the conference championship.
Still, Silverfield and company have two games to go, and, with a bowl in the cards as well, they have a great chance for a third consecutive ten-win season.
But is that really good enough?
It should be, right? This program was, after all, a doormat for years before the last decade, and Memphis was, for many years, a basketball school. College football has changed though, and with conference realignment a constant conversation, the Tigers need to be the class of their league.
Instead of league supremacy, Memphis has not made the American title game under Silverfield. Their last appearance was in the program's best season, 2019, under Mike Norvell.
Despite the conference shortcomings, the Memphis football program is stable. That stability is reflected in the program's 11, soon to be 12 year bowl streak. Stability is important, but conference titles and trips to the College Football Playoff would seemingly do a great deal more in cementing Memphis as the best of rest when it comes to conference realignment.
For the razor-thin chance of Memphis reaching either of those heights this season to happen, the Tigers must take care of business the rest of the way, starting Saturday at East Carolina and ending with a Thanksgiving battle against Navy. Two wins would give the program a third straight ten-win campaign, but Memphis will need help from other teams to find themselves in the conference championship game.
"All of our goals, everything we want to accomplish is still right in front of us," Silverfield said after Memphis' blunder at UAB earlier this season.
The Tigers' goals may technically still be attainable, but, after Tulane quarterback Jake Retzlaff kneeled away the final seconds Friday night, they sure seem far away.
I'm a senior journalism major with a sports media concentration. I have been at the Daily Helmsman for three years now, including two years as the sports editor.
