Charles Huff met with the media on Tuesday to recap the win over UNLV and preview Saturday’s game against Arkansas State. The Tigers became one of the national headlines after being the Rebels 27-21 late Saturday night on FOX, but Huff said that he wants to see improvement from his team going into week 1 and the rest of the season.
Memphis started the game slow, especially on the offensive side of the ball, but the group found some success in the second quarter and the second half. Defensively, the Tigers held firm against UNLV’s offense, and the defensive line recorded one massive stop after the other late in the game.
Despite the victory, Huff said that there were issues he saw watching film, and his team is going to need to made improvements heading into week 1.
“As a football team, we have to improve fast,” Huff said. “There’s been a lot of excitement and a lot of attention on last weeks game, but as a coach, when you watch the film, there’s a lot to improve on. A lot of positives, but there’s a lot of areas where we’ve got to take some major steps. We’ve got to do it fast because we have a great opponent coming in.”
Huff was happy with a lot of things that his team did, and he liked the way his quarterback played. Marcus Stokes was named the starting quarterback on Saturday, and he finished the game with 223 yards and two touchdowns throughout the air and 45 yards on the ground.
While he put together a nice game, Stokes missed some throws early, but Huff said he liked the way his quarterback responded.
“The thing I was most impressed with about Marcus was he was able to respond,” Huff said. “He didn’t go into a spiral of bad throw, bad throw, bad throw or bad read, bad read, bad read. He was able to respond. I think, again, new system for him, new players around him, new operations with the sideline, communicating, calling plays. I think UNLV, give them credit, they did some really good things defensively to try and challenge us, but I think, again, first game under his belt he will be a little more calm in some of those situations.”
After Saturday’s win, most fans were impressed with the Tigers’ running game, but Huff wasn’t thrilled with the way his backs ran the ball.
“I thought they were about as average as grits,” Huff said. “When you look at the film, we probably should’ve had 250 yards rushing. Our run game is patience, and a couple of times they’re making decisions so fast and one second later the hole is opening up.”
The head coach explained to the media that he wants to see his running backs wait a second longer for the hole to open, and he thinks they left a lot on the table by rushing to the hole. Jaylin Carter and Manny Covey received a majority of the workload, and they combined for 143 yards, including 97 yards and a touchdown from Carter.
While he called the performance average, Huff said that it showed what they can do moving forward, and he thought both running backs showed some nice things. “I think you got a chance to see some of their ability,” Huff said. “Some of their vision. I think the game slows down the more you play it, but for a start, I thought they both did some good things.”
Overall, Huff said he wants to see more consistency on both sides of the ball. Despite the way the defensive line played, he thought the defense could be better.
“Consistency in the execution, and that doesn’t mean be perfect,” Huff said. “We went four or five drives on offense and didn’t do anything. We just kind of went forward, went backwards, got into some third down and long situations that we don’t need to be in. So, just consistency in our execution. Defensively, the same thing. I don’t think we got enough hands on balls in the backend of the game on Saturday.”
Memphis returns to action on Saturday against Arkansas State.