What Memphis football's offense will look like in 2026 under Kevin Decker

Brace yourselves, Memphis football fans — the Tigers are going to be faster on offense when they next take the field.

New Memphis offensive coordinator Kevin Decker will bring a spread-style scheme in the vein of Tennessee coach Josh Heupel’s offense, and that means one that looks less like Tim Cramsey’s and more like the South Florida offense Memphis fans have seen the past few seasons.

“You’re going to see a unit that’s going to play fast,” Decker said at a news conference on March 23. “A common misconception with playing fast is everyone thinks: Tempo, tempo, tempo, right? And that’s great, we can tempo with the best of them, but more importantly to me is playing fast post-snap. Conviction, speed off the rock, to me that shows you you’re confident in your 1/11.”

Decker and Cramsey — who left for Arkansas with former Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield after the 2025 season — have a close relationship going back to Decker’s college career as a quarterback at New Hampshire. But Decker said there will be plenty of differences between Cramsey’s offense and the scheme the Tigers run in 2026.

For one, the Tigers’ receivers will be spread out wider than they were under Cramsey.

“Don’t get me wrong: Are you going to see us lined up on Pluto every snap? No,” Decker said. “We have things where we can align more traditional splits. But for the most part, we like to play wide. That’s our base, that’s our structure.”

Decker has plenty of work to do during spring practice, which kicked off on March 23. There’s an almost entirely new roster to evaluate and a quarterback competition to sort out before the Tigers kick off their 2026 season against UNLV on Aug. 29.

Memphis will have practices until the spring fest fan event on April 18 at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.

That quarterback competition will involve West Florida transfer Marcus Stokes and South Carolina transfer Air Noland. Both have obvious talent, but neither is proven at the FBS level. Stokes has spent his entire career in Division II, while Noland has been buried on depth charts at Ohio State and South Carolina.

“They both were very highly recruited, and they both had some turmoil at some point in their careers, which I like,” Decker said. “I think that puts a chip on each one of those guys’ shoulders. I want a quarterback with his chip on his shoulder who feels like he has something to prove.”

Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: What Memphis football’s offense will look like in 2026 under Kevin Decker