The past two weeks against Bowling Green and Cincinnati, the Memphis defense has struggled for large parts of the game, but has gotten key stops when they were needed most.
While they’ve done just enough to help the Tigers maintain their undefeated start to 2015 (4-0) after the Tigers defeated Cincinnati 53-46 on Thursday, at some point unless the defense improves, it will catch up with the Tigers. Memphis will begin the challenge of improving on defense against the University of South Florida Friday.
Memphis’ defense has given up an average of 29.3 points per game this season, but has given up 41 and 46 points in their last two games against the Falcons and Bearcats, respectively.
Tigers coach Justin Fuente said there is not one “thing” that can fix the team’s struggles on defense, but rather a combination of problems. Though Memphis’ resiliency in the last few minutes in the past couple of weeks has impressed him.
“I think there are a couple of things you can kind of ask your team from looking at it,” said Fuente at his weekly media conference Monday. “First of all, for the past two weeks, we have not liked what we have done defensively until the last five minutes of the game. This is a question you bring up to the kids, when your backs are truly against the wall we seem to respond quite well. So what is the difference between that and the normal flow of the game?”
The first two games of the season against Missouri State and Kansas saw the new-look defense perform well and gave up an average of 15 points per game. Nevertheless, another reason for their struggles is the turnover from last year’s defense to this year’s. Eight starters and three backups from the 2014 squad which finished 11th in the nation in total defense, that helped the Tigers finish 10-3 graduated.
Getting pressure on the quarterback has been a problem for the Tigers in 2014. The team has recorded eight sacks in four games, four of which came in the 55-23 victory against the Kansas Jayhawks.
The lack of pressure has led to high degrees of success for the Tigers past two foes. Bowling Green redshirt senior quarterback Matt Johnson threw for 443 yards and four touchdowns. Bearcats backup quarterback Hayden Moore threw for 557 yards and four touchdowns, and helped Cincinnati record 752 yards of total offense. The most yards a Tigers ‘defense has ever given up, which given the Tigers’ previous defense is astounding.
“We have to play better across the board,” Fuente said. “We have to get to the passer and rush the passer better. We must do a better job on coverage we give receivers. We have played good teams that are better throwing the ball but we have to play better across the board. I think we will and I think part of the challenge is that we have all these new starters out there. How do we progress and stay healthy so we can see progress? Can we improve throughout the year as those guys playing for the first or starting for the first progress throughout the season? Do we improve and that is our biggest challenge.”
Other notes
--Memphis received 11 votes in this week’s AP Poll and 42 votes in the Coaches’ Poll. Both are the highest number of votes, in both polls, for the Tigers this season.
--Tigers’ punter Spencer Smith was named the American Athletic Conference’s Special Teams Player of the Week Monday. He averaged 52.7 yards on six punts in the 53-46 win against Cincinnati on Thursday. One of which was a career-high 72 yarder. He is the third Tiger to win the award (along with Jake Elliott and Roderick Proctor) this season.
One of the leaders Memphis has missed so far this season is former linebacker Charles Harris. He recorded 237 tackles in his four seasons with the Blue and Gray.
