Mike Norvell and the Memphis Tigers will open up American Athletic
Conference play this Thursday on ESPN as they host the Temple Owls – a
team that beat them 31-12 last season. The Tigers only have four days to
recover from their loss last Saturday to Ole Miss.
It’s been a roller coaster ride through Mike Norvell’s first four games as the head coach at the University of Memphis.
His Tigers won their first three games by 18, 36 and 74, respectively, and lost to Ole Miss last Saturday by 20.
Due to no fault of their own, the Tigers haven’t been in a fair fight this season. And that’s no slight to them or the teams they’ve played. That’s just the way their 2016 fell.
Southeast Missouri State is an FCS football program. Bowling Green was good last year, but they lost their head coach Dino Babers to Syracuse and had to replace their quarterback, top rusher and top two receivers. Kansas, well, they may be the worst Division-I FBS program over the last six seasons – winning just 11 games between 2010-15. And Ole Miss lands top-20 recruiting classes annually.
Memphis was significantly more talented than their first three opponents and overmatched against Ole Miss.
The Tigers open up American Athletic Conference play against the Temple Owls on a short week this Thursday in what is the most evenly matched team they’ve faced to this point. And it should be.
Last season, Memphis traveled to Philadelphia and suffered their second- worst loss of the season, a 31-12 beating and the only game where the Tigers were held without a touchdown.
The Owls ranked in the top 20 in both scoring defense and total defense a season ago, and they’re close to those numbers this season. But games against FCS Stony Brook and Charlotte, who made the jump from FCS to FBS in 2015, help bolster those numbers.
This game should be a fairly accurate indicator of just how good of a football team Memphis is.
Initially, some doubted how good Temple was when they opened the 2016 season with 28-13 loss against Army, but as it turns out, Army has jumped out to a 3-1 start.
According to the odds makers in Las Vegas, Memphis is a 10-point favorite over Temple – which marks the lowest point spread in a game involving the Tigers this season with the second lowest coming last week when Ole Miss was favored by 15.5 points.
Much like last season, Temple is a fairly balanced offense that runs the ball 56.3 percent of the time – they ran on 54.1 percent of offensive snaps in 2015. The Owls carried the ball 46 times for 205 yards and two touchdowns against Memphis last season with three backs carrying the ball at least 12 times – all of whom return this season.
Temple’s quarterback Phillip Walker, who went by P.J. last season, also returns for the Owls. Walker threw for 261 yards and two touchdowns against the Tigers last season, but he’s gotten off to a slow start in 2016, throwing for just 194 yards per game and seven interceptions compared to just six touchdowns.
Standout linebacker Tyler Matakevich, who recorded 11 total tackles against the Tigers and 138 tackles for the 2015 season, now plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but Temple does return six of its top eight leaders in total tackles from last season – including Haason Reddick who’s tied for the AAC lead in tackles for loss with seven.
Thursday’s game will kick off at 7 p.m., and it will be broadcast nationally on ESPN from Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.
