Memphis is deep into preseason camp, and Charles Huff isn’t letting the Tigers look too far down the road just yet.
With an almost entirely new roster and a new coaching staff in place, Huff said the priority right now is simple: learn the team before worrying about anyone else. Memphis won’t officially turn its attention to UNLV until about 10 days before the Aug. 29 opener, a 9 p.m. CT kickoff on FOX.
“Right now, we’ve got a lot of things that we’ve got to take care of," coach Charles Huff said after practice on Aug. 5.
"Sun Tzu says you’ve got to know yourself before you know your opponent to win the war. So we’re still learning who we are.
And today was a good day to learn about ourselves. We can push through."
That theme fits a Memphis team that will have new starters at basically every position as Huff and his staff reshape the program. And while the season opener is still weeks away, Huff made it clear he sees every game on the schedule as a major one.
“They’re all big," Huff said. "If we go beat UNLV and we lose every other game, no one will care.
They’re all big. They’re a good team.
There’s a lot of good teams on our schedule."
The UNLV matchup in Week 0 should be Memphis’ most-watched regular-season game, and it brings another wrinkle: it will be the only contest the Tigers play indoors this season, coming inside Allegiant Stadium.
For now, though, Memphis is grinding through practices in the heat, with a steamy home opener against Arkansas State set for Sept. 5.
“Coach (Nick) Saban used to always say, if you’re going to fight in the Sahara, you’ve got to train in the Sahara," Huff said. "So we’ve got to be able to train."
In Other News...
Boise States Stadium Debut Comes With A Memphis Threat Fans Should Note
Memphis heads into a tricky early-season trip to Albertsons Stadium in 2026, when Boise State opens its home schedule against a Tigers team that will look far different from the one fans saw a year earlier. First-year coach Charles Huff has already remade the roster with a large group of new faces and assistants from Southern Miss, giving Memphis a fresh identity before it even gets to Boise. The changes touch both sides of the ball, and the Tigers should arrive with enough unknowns to make preparation a little more complicated than usual.
The biggest question is how quickly all that turnover turns into a functional team, especially with key spots still being sorted out. Memphis is working through a reshuffled quarterback battle while also trying to piece together a new offensive and defensive core, and the talent influx brings both promise and uncertainty. For Boise State, the first home game of the season will not just be about hosting a Power-style name in the building, but about handling a Memphis group that could be much more dangerous than its makeover suggests. [Read more 🡒]
Memphis Just Got A Clearer CFP Path With Almost No Margin
The College Football Playoff committees latest tweak gives Memphis a little more clarity, and maybe even a little more hope, in the long run. Under the 2026 format, the champions from the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 are guaranteed spots, and the highest-ranked team from the Group of Six gets in as well. For a program like Memphis, which has spent years trying to break through from outside the power structure, that matters. It tightens the path while also acknowledging that the race beyond the power leagues still deserves a direct lane.
There is still plenty of fine print, of course, and the margin for error remains thin. The new setup also changes the Group of Six route by no longer requiring that team to be a conference champion, which could open the door for a non-championship contender to slip in if the rankings line up the right way. The committee was trying to clean up the kind of messy scenario that surfaced in 2025, when tiebreaker quirks helped produce an oddly built bracket, and Memphis will now have a clearer target even if getting there still demands almost everything to go right. [Read more 🡒]
Memphis Schedule Is Taking Shape Around An Early Dayton Test
Memphis 2026-27 mens basketball calendar is starting to come into focus, and one of the first real measuring-stick games now sits on the board. The Tigers will meet Dayton on Nov. 29, 2026, at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, as part of the Atlantic 10/American Conference Showcase, giving Memphis an early chance to see where it stands against a respected opponent outside league play.
That matchup is only one piece of a nonconference slate that features 14 games, along with a trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas before the American Conference grind begins. With 18 league games waiting on the other side of those early tests, Memphis has lined up a schedule that should provide plenty of chances to learn what kind of team it is before the season reaches its most demanding stretch. [Read more 🡒]