As the coaching carousel chatter swirls around him, Charles Huff says none of it has reached the level of actual contact. With his name tied online to three Power Four openings - Baylor, NC State and Maryland - the first-year Memphis coach brushed off the speculation and kept the focus on Saturday night’s matchup with Army.
“Yeah, no, I talked to them probably three weeks ago, I told them, I said every job that's getting ready to come open my name's gonna be up for,” Huff said about informing the team of the rumors ahead of time. “We can control the volume, so I'm controlling the volume now.
None of it makes sense, not been called, not been contacted. You don't get a job in the middle of the season.”
For Memphis, the timing of the outside noise lands in the middle of a meaningful stretch. The Tigers are 6-2 overall and 3-1 in the American Conference, and they’ll host Army on Saturday night in what looks like one of their toughest conference tests left. Army enters at 5-2 and 4-1, with league wins over Tulane, Temple, Florida Atlantic and Tulsa.
That record matters. FAU is 5-2, and Tulane is the only conference team to beat Memphis so far, which is a reminder that Army has already shown it can handle quality opponents.
The challenge on the field is a different one entirely. Memphis will face the triple option for the first time since last Thanksgiving, when it played Navy and fell 28-17. That means the Tigers’ defense - with players like J'Mond Tapp, Taylor Burton and Elijah Kinsler - has to get ready for an offense that doesn’t look like much of anything else they see week to week.
Huff laid out the problem plainly earlier this week.
“Obviously their different offensive scheme, it creates a huge challenge just because we don't see it a ton from a practice or competitive standpoint,” Huff said Tuesday. “Got to find a way to balance what they do with adjusting what we do because it changes kind of how you have to align, how you have to play defense... you got to be a lot more efficient with every drive because you don't know how many you're going to get.”
That last part may be the key. Army and Memphis are third and fourth in the American Conference, which gives this game real weight near the top of the standings.
And for the Tigers, slow starts have been a nagging issue. Against a team that can drain possessions and shorten the game, falling behind early would make everything harder.
Quarterback Marcus Stokes said the answer is staying grounded and sticking to assignments.
“I think it's just controlling ourselves and controlling what we can control on the field,” Stokes said about playing at the adjusted pace of a Military program. “It just comes back to doing your job and doing your one-eleventh, that's just kind of like how I see it.”
Stokes comes into the game fresh off a huge performance with five total touchdowns, a day that landed him on both the Manning Award stars of the week list and the Davey O'Brien Award Great Eight for the second time this season.
He has become the engine of the offense and, at times, the emotional center of the team. His style is all-in, and that shows up in the way he plays through contact and throws his body toward the first-down marker. He said that choice is deliberate.
“I like being able to have the opportunities to put my body on the line for my teammate because I think it also, you know, proves to them... I care about this team, like this team's my family.”
That edge has helped define Stokes’ connection to Memphis. The St. Augustine native has leaned into the city’s grit and the fan base’s personality, making that toughness part of who he is on the field.
In Other News...
Memphis Gets An Early Test That Could Change The Reid Hype
Memphis already got one useful exhibition look when it handled Mississippi State behind a 26-point night from senior guard Jayden Reid, and now the Tigers are walking into a different kind of measuring stick. John Calipari, the former Memphis coach, will have Arkansas on the other sideline at Bud Walton Arena, turning a preseason game into an early test with a little extra edge attached.
Arkansas is coming off a win over Gonzaga and is expected to be one of the stronger teams in the SEC, which makes this a good chance to see how far Memphis has come and how much of Reids early buzz can carry against a tougher opponent. For a team trying to sort out its identity before the games start counting, it is the kind of matchup that can reveal a lot without officially meaning anything in the standings. [Read more 🡒]
Arkansas Gets One More Frontcourt Test As Memphis Waits On Key Big Man
Arkansas is getting one last chance to stress-test its frontcourt before the games count, and Memphis provides a useful measuring stick in the final exhibition. The Tigers will bring forward Nemanja Popovic into the matchup after he turned in a strong showing in an earlier exhibition, giving Arkansas a look at a Memphis interior group that could shape the tone of the night.
For Memphis, the broader issue is less about one exhibition and more about what the roster will look like when the regular season arrives. Popovic is dealing with an NCAA eligibility dispute that could affect his availability, and the Tigers are still sorting through a group that includes several new pieces and possible absences. So while Arkansas gets a clean evaluation of its interior defense, Memphis gets one more chance to see how its frontcourt holds up while the larger picture remains unsettled. [Read more 🡒]