Memphis Tigers 2025 College Football Preview
Posted June 30, 2025
2024 Recap
Record – 11-2
ATS – 6-7
The Tigers put together their 2nd consecutive double-digit winning season but they couldn’t find their way into the AAC Championship Game. Memphis lost a wild one at Navy early in the campaign (L 56-44) and were upset by UTSA at home in November, and two AAC losses were enough to end their conference dreams. The Tigers kept fighting until the bitter end as they beat mighty Tulane on their home field (W 34-24) to end the regular season and slid past West Virginia in a very entertaining Frisco Bowl (W 42-37) to notch win #11.
Memphis Tigers 2025 Outlook
OFFENSE
The Tigers were a tough outfit to handle LY (35.7 PPG, #12 FBS; 445 YPG, #16) but they’re in a very difficult position this season in terms of replacing their STAR POWER. QB Seth Henigan departs as the program’s all-time leading passer by a wide margin and he was phenomenal LY (3,502, 25-6 TD to INT). The Tigers made a nice scoop by adding former Nevada dual-threat QB Brendon Lewis (16-7 TD to INT; 775 rush, 8 TD LY) and it’ll be interesting to see how the Memphis offense adapts to having a mobile specimen at QB. The RB/WR/TE situation is a bit of a mess as they need to replace 1,300-yard (!) RB Mario Anderson (18 TD), their top-three WRs, and #1 TE. Memphis will roll with RB Sutton Smith as the #1 option and whilst he’s a talented guy, he’s also had problems with the injury bug. Maybe MTSU transfer RB Frank Peasant (774, 9 TD in 2022) is the solution? The WR corps doesn’t look promising based on the holdovers and transfer portal haul but you never know. Memphis has averaged 270+ YPG thru the air in each of the L6Y so there’s always hope. The offensive line is in good shape despite losing a pair of excellent starters thanks to a significant bounty obtained thru the portal.
DEFENSE
The Tigers were rock solid vs the run LY (112 YPG, #12 FBS) but they were a bit soft when it came to defending the THROW GAME (#119 FBS pass defense). Like many teams in the country, Memphis will be relying BIGLY on transfers to replace the enormous amount of production lost thru graduation and the transfer portal. The Tigers will be without the top-seven (!) tacklers from the 2024 defense and it’ll be a challenge to hold up against the run as well as they did last year. It’s great to have DE William Whitlow back up front and he’ll be joined by several talented newcomers including NT Pooda Walker (Kennesaw St) and DE Taylor Burton (UT Martin). LBs Sam Brumfield (Virginia Tech) and Cam Burden (Charlotte) will try and help fill the massive hole left by star LB Chandler Martin (111 tackles, 16 TFL) but it won’t be easy. The entire two-deep in the secondary is essentially new so it’s tough to predict how they’ll perform. There are a lot of new faces that’ll get a shot but it’s been a while since Memphis was sound on the back end.
SPECIAL TEAMS
The Tigers have been solid on special teams throughout the Ryan Silverfield regime but they need to find replacements for PR Koby Drake (12.6) and their excellent punter Joshua Sloan (43.5, 41.5 net). There’s good news to report at PK as Memphis managed to scoop up former Ohio Bobcat Gianni Spetic who was solid in 2024 (13/16 FG, 47/48 XP).
Schedule Analysis
Overall – Memphis fans should be happy. The toughest game on the non-conference docket is a home game vs WOO PIG and it’s not like Arkansas is unbeatable. They have road games with Georgia St and Troy to deal with but it’s possible that Memphis could head into AAC action with a record of 4-0. The conference schedule very manageable as they miss UTSA and Army, and they get to face Tulane and Navy at home in November.
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – at East Carolina (Nov 15)
This game is sandwiched between the two yuuuge games noted above (Tulane, Navy) and note that the ARRRRRRR Pirates have taken down Memphis in five of the last six meetings in Greenville.
Season Win Total
Market consensus June 30
Over 8.5 -105
Under 8.5 -125
MEGALOCKS says:
No leanage.
We prefer the ‘over’ a wee bit but there’s so much roster turnover and a slow start would make it tough to win 9+ games. Taking a pass on this market for now.
Note – Our official list of season win total investments will be posted in the blog section of the website.
MEGAmazing Tidbits
HC Ryan Silverfield is 6-2 ATS as a home dog but just 9-16-1 ATS (36%) as a home favorite during his time in Memphis.
After losing five consecutive bowl games from 2015 to 2019, the Tigers have been deadly in the postseason winning their last four bowl events, the last two coming vs teams from the Big 12 (West By God Virginia, Iowa St).
Memphis, TN is consistently among the league leaders in MOSTLY PEACEFUL violent crime.
MEGALOCKS Forecast:
The Tigers have been a solid program over the last five seasons booking 11/10/7/6/8 wins under the guiding hand of Ryan Silverfield. However, one has to wonder if they may have missed their window of opportunity having failed to make even one AAC Championship Game over that time horizon, and that was with a superstar QB. The good news is that the program has lots of resources **** and they illustrated that over the offseason by bringing in a boatload of transfers.
The offense won’t be as potent but having a lethal running threat at QB will open up some interesting possibilities. The raw talent on defense is there but we can’t be sure if they’ll mold into a cohesive unit. The schedule is helpful so we expect them to be in the thick of the conference hunt heading into November. Good luck, Tigers!
**** Cash, yo.