Memphis Football: Can Tigers repeat as top Group of Five team in 2020?

For Group of Five teams, repeating after earning a New Year’s Six bid can be tougher than the initial journey. Memphis football faces that challenge in 2020.

In 2017 and 2018, Memphis was thwarted in their dream of winning the American Athletic Conference. Both times, UCF stomped on those dreams in the AAC championship game, the first duel a double-overtime thriller and the latter chance a Jekyll-and-Hyde performance from a Tigers team that built a 17-point lead but slumped after the intermission.

2019 marked a huge breakthrough for Mike Norvell’s team, as Memphis downed Cincinnati for the AAC crown and earned the Group of Five bid to a New Year’s Six bowl. Even the loss to Penn State in the Cotton Bowl could not dampen the brilliance of the 2019 campaign in Memphis.

As fellow AAC New Year’s Six qualifiers like UCF and Houston have discovered before, though, the challenge is often less in reaching the pinnacle than maintaining position once at the summit of the mid-major field. Memphis now faces that challenge in 2020, staring down a schedule that now lacks a Power Five opportunity in the regular season after Purdue joined the rest of the Big Ten in pulling out of the fall season.

Oh, and they do so with a new head coach after Norvell left to take over in Tallahassee at Florida State. In comes Ryan Silverfield, who has coached the offensive line since 2016 and taken on an ever-expanding number of responsibilities since joining the Tigers. Silverfield brings both college and pro coaching experience to the table, but this is his first head gig.

Can the Tigers return to the top of the AAC and repeat as the top Group of Five team under a new coach in a year where there will be no challenge from the Mountain West or the MAC? Let’s dive in to look at the offense and defense at Memphis before breaking down the 2020 Tigers schedule and making some predictions on how their next campaign will play out.