And there we have it; the illusion has been shattered.
Memphis met its match in Los Angeles this past Saturday, falling to the UCLA Bruins 42-35. Nevertheless, the Tigers put up an astounding fight in what all who watched the competition have called a surprisingly even match.
Named the AAC Player of the Week, Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch completed 27-of-41 passes for 305 yards, nicely complimented by two scores: the first on foot, the other in the air to running back Brandon Hayes.
Not to mull over the past, but let us look back to what spelled disaster for these pursuant Tigers.
And the first piece of evidence? The ever-so-accusatory box score. The Memphis of the weekend past looked nothing like the team who demolished the AP Governors. Their respective box scores are shown below:
Memphis vs. UCLA: Q1: 7 | Q2: 14 | Q3: 0 | Q4: 14
Memphis vs. Gov’nas: Q1: 21 | Q2: 21 | Q3: 14 | Q4: 7
Just as was highlighted before its first game, one of Memphis’ key ingredients to victory must be a strong, dominant start. Memphis simply can not afford to sit back and observe the competition for the first quarter, assessing the tempo created by the opponent and consequently not playing its own style of football. Fuente and the Tigers have got to set the pace – and a quick one at that.
But what else slated Memphis for a loss on Saturday? Time management.
We’ll put ourselves down onto the field on that fated night. With the cooling September evening air of Los Angeles filling the stadium, the time clock relentlessly ticks down. The ball is hiked. Twenty-nine seconds remain. Lynch peeks at the ensuing Bruin rush and shovels the coveted football to the quickly-downed Hayes just 10 feet to his left, miles from the security of the time-freezing sideline. Twenty-four seconds. Fuente holds no restful timeouts. Paxton attempts again with a ten yard pass to yet another immediately-downed receiving Tiger. The clock counts down. Two. One. Zero.
When the clock is counting down, the trailing team, if fortunate enough to be on the offensive side of the ball, needs to keep all eyes on the remaining time. Having a couple of timeouts left is always a sigh of relief. Regrettably, Memphis was not so fortunate. Therefore, getting to the sidelines is a must, yet something that Lynch was unable to accomplish.
Now ranked No. 2 in our Week 3 AAC power rankings, the Liberty Bowl and Middle Tennessee await these ever-resilient Tigers. As head coach Justin Fuente told his team following their emphatic heartbreaker on Saturday:
“When you come up a little short on something that you have really sold out to try and accomplish, it should hurt. But it shouldn’t deter you from setting out and trying to accomplish something else. The measure of the man is how he responds and reacts to adversity,” reported 247Sports.
Needless to say, Memphis has not taken its eyes off what the past has proven to be an elusive bowl game bid. If they can set the pace early and manage that oh-so-valuable time, November will not be the last time we’ll see these Tigers in action this season.
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