Tigers’ dramatic win showed us why they played in 2020
Memphis holds on after late push from Houston
“It’s never going to look the way you think it is.”
Riley Patterson
Memphis kicker
The field goal sailed through the uprights and Riley Patterson just started running.
He’d played out this moment in his mind, his first career walk-off kick, maybe 45,000 times before, he said. It never went this way.
So when he crossed mid-field, Patterson turned around to see what was unfolding behind him.
Then he raised his arms triumphantly.
There was quarterback Brady White, and holder Preston Brady, and really the entire Memphis sideline, impulsively sprinting across the field out of sheer jubilation.
In that moment of unrestrained joy, in the immediate aftermath of the Tigers’ dramatic 30-27 win over Houston Saturday, the whole point of this season crystallized.
This is why they did it.
This is why the players and the coaches took all those coronavirus tests.
This is why they altered their lives to conform to the protocols of this most unusual of college football seasons.
This is why White came back, and kept playing, when some of his teammates didn’t.
This is why the fans kept showing up, even Saturday in the wind and the cold, as this pandemic raged at a record pace, for a game that had been rendered irrelevant as far as the standings.
They were there for one last chance to feel like this.
For one last record broken by White. For one last game-winning drive. For one last dramatic kick.
For one last roar. Even if it looked and sounded different than anyone dreamed it would.
“Before you fall asleep the night before the game, you try to envision on the sidelines what it will look like going through the uprights, and it just didn’t,” Patterson said. “And I think that’s what makes it special. I think that’s what makes sports special. I think that’s what makes college football special. It’s never going to look the way you think it is.”
That’s what made Saturday such a remarkable result that didn’t matter in the traditional way that college football games tend to matter. It didn’t look the way any of us envisioned.
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations and deaths are reaching new highs each day. College basketball is debating whether to forge ahead in the midst of game postponements and program pauses. College football is stumbling to the finish line.
This Houston game was originally scheduled to take place on Sept. 19 only to be moved to Dec. 18, only to be postponed when Memphis had a COVID-19 outbreak.
Then it was moved again, from Dec. 5 to Dec. 12, because other AAC teams had COVID-19 issues.
Over the past week, it had three different kickoff times, from streaming on ESPN+ at 11:00 a.m. to ESPNU at 2:30 to ESPN2 at 2:45. Hope you had the guide function handy.
But here we all were, watching Memphis play its 10th football game of the season together, with just 55 players in uniform due to opt outs, injuries and transfers.
Think about how unlikely that scenario seemed back in August and September, back when we wondered if this season might not happen at all, and Memphis went 28 days between games.
Holding these games in front of limited fans at the Liberty Bowl “helped us slow the bleeding” financially, Memphis deputy athletic Jeff Crane said. But the athletic department is still facing a deficit upwards of $10 million in this fiscal year
So think about what the Tigers gave us simply by playing this season, and think about what we might’ve missed had they not.
We saw Calvin Austin III join Isaac Bruce, Anthony Miller and Damonte Coxie as the only Memphis players to finish a season with more than 1,000 receiving yards.
We saw intriguing contributors like wide receiver Tahj Washington, defensive lineman Morris Joseph and defensive back Quindell Johnson emerge.
We saw Memphis orchestrate undefeated seasons at the Liberty Bowl in back-to-back years for the first time.
We saw White re-write the Memphis record book, and we saw him break one last Memphis record on Saturday. He became the school’s all-time leader in passing yards after previously becoming the all-time leader in wins and touchdowns.
And then, once the Tigers coughed up a 27-6 fourth-quarter lead, we saw him lead one more game-saving drive.
The score was tied, the ball was on the Tigers’ 25, and only 28 seconds were left in regulation. White made it look easy. Just like he did twice before this season.
He flicked a 12-yard pass to tight end Caden Prieskorn. Then Austin drew a pass interference penalty. Then White found Austin for a 22-yard catch. Suddenly, Memphis was centering the ball at the Houston 29 for Patterson’s 47yard field goal.
“I don’t know if we’re as talented as the teams we’ve had in the past,” coach Ryan Silverfield admitted, “but these guys fight and find a way.”
Silverfield got emotional afterwards. After he was asked, on the verge of his one-year anniversary of taking over this program, about what he learned.
“It’s felt like 30 years,” Silverfield answered, and soon his voice trailed off, trying to hold back his emotions like he did at the opening news conference to announce his hiring last December, as he tried to express what this job and this community mean to him.
But when that field goal sailed through the uprights, and Memphis won, this all felt worth it.
Patterson started running and didn’t stop until the entire team was mosh pitting in the corner of the stadium, right in front of where the student section would be if there weren’t a pandemic. Silverfield said Austin tried to lift him in celebration.
White took his own victory lap around the Liberty Bowl.
This was likely his last home game at Memphis, and he did little to dispel that as he thanked the fans who stayed until the end.
“Walking off the field in the fashion that I did, the way we did, knowing what we as a team have done, what I’ve done here,” White said, “I’m so dang proud.” This is why they did it.
This is why they played the season, and why they played the way they did Saturday.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto