Tigers repeat as AAC West Division champs
The crowd began chanting before Memphis put the finishing touches on a 52-31 win over Houston at the Liberty Bowl on Friday. "UCF! UCF!" With the win, Memphis (8-4, 5-3) repeated as AAC West Division champions and will get its wish of another crack at UCF in the AAC Championship game on Dec. 1 at 3:30 p.m.
Memphis went run heavy in the second half
After Brady White’s second interception just before halftime, Memphis coach Mike Norvell made a smart adjustment to lean heavier on the run game.
afternoon. Because once Henderson picked up four yards to convert that fourth down, Norvell decided, "Let's see if they can stop it." They couldn't. Henderson gained 19 more yards using the exact same play the next snap. Then Patrick Taylor rumbled for 30 more yards on the next two plays.
Before three minutes had elapsed, Memphis scored a touchdown and took the lead for good. Before long, Dorceus was running stride for stride with Henderson on a 60-yard touchdown run. Before the game ended, the Tigers had scored 21 fourth-quarter points without ever throwing a pass.
All Houston and star defensive lineman Ed Oliver could do was tap out.
"Even when we were whooping them, they were still talking," Henderson said. "So we were like, ‘We ain’t going to do a lot of talking. We’re just going to whoop y’all in between plays.”
“It feels good when you’re breaking somebody’s will," Dorceus added.
The will of these Tigers is how they will now be remembered.
Many in town (this columnist included) didn't think Friday was possible after they lost three of four during a mid-season swoon. There was no way the Liberty Bowl would host a meaningful football game the day after Thanksgiving and fans would be chanting "U-C-F" when it was over.
Now, after it appears UCF quarterback McKenzie Milton suffered a severe leg injury Friday, Memphis could win an AAC championship.
But here they are, and the Tigers said that this championship game berth feels more rewarding than the one this program earned a year ago because of how they did it.
“This whole season, I mean it was really a test of faith," Taylor said. "I mean people counted us out from the jump when we lost to Navy. We kept our head down. Kept grinding, kept grinding, kept grinding, and now we’re at where we’re at.”
Norvell also deserves more credit than he did a year ago when the Tigers achieved the same feat.
Because this year, Memphis got there by using smoke and mirrors to orchestrate another offense ranked among the top 10 in the country.
It got there without anything resembling a downfield passing attack and a quarterback who gave away 14 points before halftime Friday.
It got there with a flawed defense that couldn't tackle and couldn't corral at least five potential interceptions against Houston but figured out how to get the stops that mattered most over the past month.
It got there by beating only one team with a record above .500.
This all felt duct-taped together. But darn if the duct tape didn't hold up just fine.
Instead of flash, the Tigers set a new single-season record for team rushing yards and Henderson set a new conference record for rushing yards by a player.
He's a Doak Walker Award finalist because of all this, but Norvell's role in that should not be overlooked.
He's shown a tendency to over-think the big situations, and it's a trait that cost Memphis in one-point losses to Navy and UCF earlier this year. But Friday, he just kept calling a variation of the same play, over and over again.
That's the sign of a young coach who's still growing even while winning more games in a three-year span than any other Memphis coach.
Who understood what this team had to be in order to end its season right where everyone hoped it would before the year began.
"People remember what you do in November," Norvell said, "and this football team responded."