Here's a deeper look, by the numbers, at Memphis' 55-23 victory against the Kansas Jayhawks Saturday night. After last night's win, the Tigers are now 2-0 for the first time since 2004.
354: Memphis redshirt junior quarterback Paxton Lynch threw for a career-best 354 yards versus the Jayhawks. His previous career-high was 311 yards in last season’s 41-14 victory against the Cincinnati Bearcats. What made Lynch’s night even more impressive is he had just three incompletions in the entire game – he completed 22 of 25 passes and threw two touchdowns – one being his first throw of the night. Another plus for Lynch was his performance earned him an early exit, for the second consecutive week. This was Lynch’s fifth career 300-yard passing game for the Blue and Gray, and it won’t be his last.
651: The Tiger offense racked up 651 yards of total offense (370 passing yards and 281 rushing yards), the second most in a single-game in team history. The single-game record is 659, which was set in a 69-19 Tiger victory versus longtime rival Louisville in 1969.
52: For the second consecutive week, the Tigers ran the ball more than 50 times. Memphis rushed for 281 yards and five touchdowns on 52 carries. Eleven different players recorded at least one carry, five of whom are wide receivers. It will be interesting to see once the games tighten up, particularly when they face Bowling Green next weekend, if they will continue to spread the carries around as they have through the first two games or go to a more traditional approach with a few players, primarily the running backs, getting the boatload of the carries. Either way, the Tiger rushing attack has been unstoppable through two weeks.
11: Speaking of spreading the ball around, 11 different Tigers caught a pass in last night’s victory. While Memphis’ offense may not have one “go-to guy” at wide receiver, having lots of solid receivers, who can make plays, is never a bad thing.
3: One of the reasons the Tigers had that slow start last night was Memphis committed three turnovers, all of them being fumbles. Though it wasn't a huge problem against the Jayhawks, the Tigers will have to avoid another turnover-fest against the Falcons next Saturday. Bowling Green's offense has shown in the first two weeks of the season they can score in bunches (30 points against Tennessee and 48 against Maryland). Memphis cannot give the Falcons’ high-powered offense additional possessions and expect to win.
359: One of the keys for Memphis heading into the Kansas game was to see how their defense would hold up against a Jayhawks offense that recorded 576 yards of total offense and scored 38 points against South Dakota State last weekend. The Tiger defense gave up 359 yards of total offense, and 23 points. Pretty solid numbers given they were playing on the road, against a Power Five team, for the first time this season. The Memphis defense still has lots of questions to answer in the coming weeks, but to this point they've done everything that's been asked of them.
Memphis redshirt senior Mose Frazier ran for a 60-yard touchdown and caught four passes for 77 yards in Saturday’s win against Kansas.
