What Charles Huff said after the 24-point win over UT Martin

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Charles Huff met with the media after Saturday’s win over UT Martin to discuss the week of practice, the win and the upcoming open date. Memphis bounced back from the road loss against Boise State with a comfortable victory over an FCS opponent. 

The Tigers got things going early, and Marcus Stokes threw for four touchdowns before he was replaced by backup quarterback Air Noland. Memphis scored on seven of their nine drives, and it didn’t record a three-and-out throughout the game.

With the game in hand, Huff elected to insert some of the younger players in the second half, and several players flashed potential in limited play.

Defensively, the Tigers didn’t record any takeaways, but the Skyhawks struggled to get much going, especially against the Memphis starters, and the Tigers held them to 291 yards of offense.

How they responded after the loss to Boise State:

Huff said he liked the way his team responded after the loss against Boise State. He explained that nobody likes losing, and it was a hard week of practice because of it, but he thought the team did what they needed to do to fix some of those mistakes.

“Really proud of their response,” Huff said. “Really proud of the way they allowed us to coach them hard. Really proud of how they took ownership and fixed some of the problems.”

Getting some of the young guys in:

Huff started inserting younger guys in the third quarter, and by the time the game ended, third string quarterback Denzel Gardner was leading the offense. The head coach said earlier in the year that the new five-for-five rules would require the coaches to find roles for the younger players early, and it looks like he’s going to take advantage of these types of situations.

“We could’ve kept the ones in and scored 70 or 87 points,” Huff said. “I think that’s what people are scoring now, but to me, for us and for our program, we need to know how many guys we have that can play winning football because at some point down the line we’re going to need as many of these players to perform as possible. So, the only way to get true live reps is to try to get them in a game. It was a really good opportunity for that.”

Several players took advantage of the opportunity, including running back Jordan Thompson. The freshman recorded six carries in the second half and finished the game with 110 yards.

“A lot of guys stepped up today and showed us that they have some ability that we can continue to build on,” Huff said.

While he led the team with rushing yards and found the end zone, the turf monster caught him several times, including on a long run that could’ve resulted in a touchdown.

“Yea, I don’t know what’s wrong with his feet,” Huff said. “I still haven’t figured that out yet.”

Huff went on to talk about how Thompson is a guy that has done some nice things during practice, but they haven’t had an opportunity to get him into a game. He was happy with what the freshman showed, and he thinks the experience will keep the young running back hungry.

Off week plan:

Memphis gets the week off after four straight games to start the season, and one of the big questions is how the Tigers will spend the off week.

“Obviously, we have a lot of self-scout to do,” Huff said. “I think we’ve got to, as a coaching staff, figure out who we are moving forward. We also have a lot of recruiting to do because it’s a great opportunity to get out to some of these high schools, especially here locally, that we’re not able to get out to as much during the season. We’ve also got a ton of fundamental work to do. We got a chance to play a lot of younger guys, so we’ve got to try to speed up their development because we’re going to need them.”

The head coach broke it down into three categories. Schematic and organizational realignment, player development and recruiting. 

Huff said that all three are equally important, and the week will be just as busy, if not busier, that a game week.

Defense:

It was business as usual for the defense, but Huff said he liked the way they tackled against UT Martin. He said there was a big emphasis placed on tackling after the team missed a ton of tackles against the Broncos.

“I thought we tackled better,” Huff said. “That was the challenge to the defense. I told them on Monday I don’t care what the score is. I want to see how are we going to play. Here are the challenges, bang, defense, tackle better. Do a better job of communicating. I think you probably saw us communicating better. Naked eye test, but it looked and sounded like they were communicating better. We worked on some things in practice lowering our tackling targets. We got down on some guys legs this week.”

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