Five reasons why Memphis can qualify for the first 12-team College Football Playoff

College Football Playoff expansion is more open than ever for the American Athletic Conference.

For 10 years under the 4-team CFP format, the AAC required every bit of campaigning to secure a spot in the exclusive postseason tournament. Four AAC teams entered bowl season undefeated in those 10 years, but only 2021 Cincinnati secured the coveted bid to compete on the sport’s grandest stage.

The 2024 season brings a seismic shift to the CFP that overwhelmingly benefits the AAC. This year, 12 teams will be granted access, including the five highest-ranked conference champions. Excluding the Pac-12 given the conference’s near demise, the AAC champion successfully fit this criteria in six of the past seven seasons and seven of the past nine. Even though Conference USA champion edged AAC champion SMU for a New Year’s Six bid last year, that historical sample size suggests this is usually the AAC’s bid to lose.

So who from the AAC is best positioned to qualify for the inaugural 12-team playoff? Look no further than Beale Street. The Memphis Tigers are fresh off a 10-3 campaign, riding an impressive wave of momentum into 2024 after edging Mountain West champion Boise State in non-conference play and rolling through Iowa State in the Liberty Bowl. They weren’t far off from the New Year’s Six picture, losing close games to Missouri, Tulane, and SMU — all teams that finished with 11 wins.

Memphis has a tremendous winning culture, posting 10 consecutive non-losing seasons with four double-digit win campaigns in that stretch. Why can the 2024 Tigers not only continue that trend, but disrupt the national conversation and sneak into the playoff?

Here are five reasons:

---

1. Seth Henigan keeps getting better

Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports

Experience is vital, especially at the quarterback position. The AAC Offensive Player of the Year has been awarded to a quarterback 10 of the 11 years in the conference’s young history. Eight of those quarterbacks guided 11+ wins teams, and that number increases to nine if you add 2020 Desmond Ridder, who led Cincinnati to a 9-1 record during a pandemic-shortened season.

This conference no longer features Michael Pratt, Preston Stone, or Frank Harris. Seth Henigan has all the tools to be the premier quarterback destined for that honor this season. Henigan enters his fourth year as Memphis’ starter, and each season, he demonstrated marked improvement. The Denton, TX native amplified his completion percentage from 59.8 to 64.1 to 66.8 percent in his first three seasons as a starter. He also set new personal-bests in the yardage and touchdown departments in 2023, gunning for 3,883 yards (4th in FBS) while displaying a remarkable touchdown to interception ratio of 32 to 9. Only five quarterbacks found the end zone more often than Henigan, who was the lead pilot of the FBS’s fifth-ranked scoring offense and ninth-ranked passing offense.

The offense should remain lethal as the fourth iteration of Henigan as a starting quarterback has plenty of weaponry at his disposal. Memphis returns its top two receivers Roc Taylor (1,083 yards) and Demeer Blankumsee (901 yards), as well as Koby Drake who tied for fourth on the team with 33 receptions in 2023. But Henigan can stretch the field vertically, and he has the personnel to do so with the addition of speedster Jyaire Shorter, who averaged a striking 27.3 yards per catch during a 628-yard, 11-touchdown season at North Texas in 2022.

Henigan is another spoke on the wheel of electrifying Memphis quarterbacks who can light up defenses on a weekly basis. He surpassed 315 passing yards on eight occasions last fall. His growth, pocket awareness, and mobility have all noticeably improved since onboarding with the Tigers in 2021. If the year-to-year growth tells us anything, it’s that Henigan will be among the elite FBS quarterbacks this season.

---

2. Chandler Martin is an omnipresent force on defense

Photo by Justin Ford/Getty Images

Now let’s look at recipients of the AAC Defensive Player of the Year. This award is oftentimes presented to a do-it-all linebacker that single-handedly impacts winning for his team. In 2020, we saw Zaven Collins disrupt every facet of the game, picking off passes, dominating on blitzes, and stuffing the run to lead Tulsa to an AAC Championship Game appearance. In 2022, Ivan Pace Jr. stuffed the stat sheet for a 9-win defensive-oriented Cincinnati team with 137 tackles 21.5 tackles for loss, 10 sacks, three forced fumbles, and four pass breakups.

There is a linebacker with that capability of wreaking havoc with a winning impact in the 2024 AAC, and he plays for Memphis. Chandler Martin was one of the more underrated transfer portal additions during the 2023 season. Prior to arriving at Memphis, Martin was a 2022 FCS All-American, and he proved he was FBS ready from the second he donned the blue and gray tiger stripes. Martin earned First Team All-AAC honors last fall after accruing a team-high 95 tackles, along with 17.0 tackles for loss to rank second in the conference. But Martin’s defensive presence extends beyond stifling running backs, as he recorded three sacks, two interceptions, two pass breakups, and two forced fumbles as the Tigers’ most versatile defender.

That was all in year one as an FBS player, so what’s in store for the star WILL linebacker in 2024? He must adapt to a new defensive coordinator in Jordon Hankins — the successor to Matt Barnes, who accepted the Mississippi State defensive coordinator gig this offseason. But Martin tremendously demonstrated his adaptability last season, and the Tigers will operate with arguably the best defensive player in the conference.

---

3. Memphis hit a home run with the o-line in the portal

Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Memphis retains a multitude of talent on the offensive side, ranging from Seth Henigan at quarterback to a slew of his top receivers from 2023. But one area Memphis doesn’t have the luxury of significant returning experience is the offensive line. The Tigers lost starters Makylan Pounders and Davion Hill to the transfer portal, while longtime reliable All-AAC center Jacob Likes declared for the NFL Draft.

Memphis returns Jonah Gambill, who already has three years of starting experience under his belt, as well as Xavier Hill, who earned Second Team All-AAC honors in his first year after transferring from LSU and is expected to be one of the premier linemen in the conference this year. Memphis hopes to create more Xavier Hill type stories in 2024, as the Tigers received a massive haul of offensive line talent from the transfer portal this offseason.

Jaylen Nichols arrives from South Carolina, and he possesses a wealth of starting experience, dating back to his freshman year in 2019. Nichols likely assumes the left tackle spot which he primarily manned for the Gamecocks in 2021 and 2022. The 6’5”, 318 pound graduate transfer has been a force when on the field, but availability is a concern after missing the entirety of 2023 due to a knee injury suffered in South Carolina’s spring game.

The Tigers also fortify the unit with Trent Holler and Keydrell Lewis. Memphis represents Holler’s third collegiate stop, as the redshirt senior started at East Carolina before moving to Marshall where he picked up starting left guard duties. The starting lineup is likely completed by ULM transfer Keydrell Lewis, who started 35 games the past three seasons, primarily operating from the right tackle spot.

These transfer additions decrease the learning curve needed for Memphis’ offensive line in 2024. Although the unit still needs to time to gel, all five members are experienced starters who have endured success at either Memphis or previous destinations — and that should go a long way in keeping this offense the well-oiled machine it was in 2023.

---

4. Secondary woes have been addressed

Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports

During Memphis’ 10-year stretch of success, there is one area you can usually point to as a weakness for the team — passing defense. The 2023 Tigers rattled off 10 victories, won a bowl game, and nearly secured a final AP Top 25 ranking, but their secondary was far from a polished product.

Memphis exhibited the nation’s 10th worst passing defense, yielding 268 passing yards per game. The unit allowed 38 points to a Charlotte offense which ranked 126th in scoring. It also surrendered 50 to South Florida and 42 to North Texas, but thanks to its explosive offense, Memphis was fortunate enough to escape with close victories in all three defensive debacles.

The Liberty Bowl win over Iowa State featured some of the best run defense from any team all season, as the Tigers stonewalled the Cyclones to zero rushing yards on 20 attempts with only two sacks factoring into the equation. But Iowa State still managed 26 points in the contest due to 446 passing yards on the Memphis secondary.

If the Tigers want to contend for the College Football Playoff, bucking this trend is a must. Zone coverage has been a major issue for Memphis in past seasons, and the Tigers made bringing in secondary depth a priority in the portal this offseason.

After the success of Chandler Martin at linebacker, Memphis once again consulted the FCS ranks where it landed cornerback Kourtlan Marsh from Samford. At safety, the Tigers bolstered the unit by adding full-time Old Dominion starter Tahj Ra-El who could also crack the starting lineup in Memphis this fall. They also gained Akron and ULM safety/nickelback AJ Watts, another starter with vast experience since he entered the collegiate ranks in 2019.

These newcomers join veteran three-year starter Greg Rubin in the secondary, who once ranked top five in the FBS in pass breakups. With a new defensive coordinator in Jordon Hankins who served as linebackers coach the last few seasons, a new co-defensive coordinator in Spence Nowinsky who captained a top 10 Ohio defense last year, and a first-year cornerbacks coach in Reggie Howard who spent plenty of time in the NFL ranks, Memphis has different personnel to coach this overhauled secondary.

Will these changes convey, is a question that has yet to be determined. But Memphis prioritized addressing this area of concern, and any improvement in the defensive backfield can go a long way in molding a CFP contender.

---

5. Strength of schedule allows some margin for error

Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports

If Memphis runs the table in the regular season, the Tigers are unquestionably playoff-bound. In all likelihood, Memphis could afford one loss and also qualify for the CFP without hesitation. Chalking up two losses, which 2023 AAC champion SMU entered the postseason with, comes with some gray area, but Memphis could still be one of the five highest-ranked conference champions in this scenario if the right cards fall into place.

The Tigers present a respectable non-conference slate which features reigning Sun Belt champion Troy and reigning ACC champion Florida State in consecutive weeks. Although Troy lost a heap of its personnel from its 11-3 campaign last fall, establishing superiority over the standard of the Sun Belt is the perfect gateway for Memphis to finish ranked above that conference’s champion. The Tigers also enter Tallahassee as underdogs, but upsetting their former head coach Mike Norvell and the Seminoles allows Memphis more margin for error in conference play, while a loss shouldn’t backfire significantly if Florida State remains a top 10 program.

But remember, in order to qualify for the CFP from the AAC, a conference championship is essentially a requisite. Memphis faces one of the more challenging AAC slates, facing all four teams from the conference that qualified for bowl eligibility in 2023. Its three toughest conference matchups — South Florida, UTSA, and Tulane — all transpire on the road, ramping up the difficulty even more. As long as the Tigers win the conference championship on Friday, Dec. 6, they can most likely afford one loss across in conference play.

One of Memphis’ most likely challengers for this playoff spot is projected CUSA favorite Liberty, which ranks dead last in strength of schedule for the second consecutive season. Thus, the Tigers’ opportunities to counter any potential losses with quality wins could catapult them over an undefeated Flames team in the rankings. After the 11-2 SMU vs. 13-0 Liberty debate for a New Year’s Six bowl last December, we could be in for another committee decision between a multi-loss AAC champion and an unblemished conference champion with a weaker schedule. But given those five aforementioned opponents, Memphis could win that debate with multiple losses simply due to the quality of teams faced throughout the season.