Memphis football lost in overtime to ECU, and it feels like the program is losing its way | Giannotto

Memphis felt like it had to go for the win. During any other season in recent memory, it wouldn’t have.

Before debating the merits of the failed two-point conversion that defined the Tigers’ 30-29 overtime loss to ECU on Saturday, a decision that could end up defining this bumpy second season under coach Ryan Silverfield, this is perhaps the most important distinction.

These two teams took the field at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium playing for bowl eligibility. ECU left feeling like an ascendant program, having secured a sixth win for the first time since 2014. Memphis left wondering whether it’s possible that goal might not be reached for the first time since 2013.

But Silverfield better get the Tigers there.

Whatever it takes, over the final two games of this regular season, this needs to end with a bowl berth because the narrative that’s beginning to form around this program, around this coaching staff, needs to change.

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More than any other takeaway from a close loss that could have and probably should have been a blowout loss, this is the one worth examining.

Not because his job is on the line. But because everyone involved, from the administrators and boosters to Silverfield himself, need to figure out what he is as a coach, and what this program is trying to become under him. Languishing in this middle ground between not good and not bad is no place to be, especially whenever conference realignment begins to churn again.

This program that two years ago reached heights Memphis fans never imagined is on a trajectory that is indecipherable, mostly because the identity of the team is indecipherable. From series to series, half to half, and game to game.

Memphis wants to be a running team, only it can't run the ball. It wants to be aggressive, but not all the time. It has a defense that sometimes gets after the quarterback and sometimes lets the quarterback do whatever the heck he wants.

This urgency, on some level, runs counter to the big wins Silverfield has gotten in two years. But those achievements, like the upsets of Mississippi State and SMU this year, have been diminished by what happened afterward.

In this case, though, the Tigers didn't blow big leads like they did against UTSA and Temple. This time, they got totally outplayed at home by a team they were once ahead of in the American Athletic Conference pecking order.

Forget the ending for a second and check out the gory details before it.

ECU outgained Memphis, 502-341. It ran 102 plays, double the amount of Memphis. It won the time of possession battle by more than 25 minutes. ECU entered this game ranked No. 128 in the country in third-down conversions this season. It converted 18 of its 26 third downs Saturday.

The Tigers were lucky to be within striking distance throughout, or to have the chance for freshman place kicker David Kemp to kick a game-tying field goal at the end of regulation. Turnovers, red zone stands and six sacks by the defense created that, although they weren’t without their own issues

Memphis does have the best true freshman quarterback in the country in Seth Henigan, a quarterback who looked as sublime and clutch as all of his recent predecessors while orchestrating those late heroics. He is undeniable hope … whenever Silverfield and offensive coordinator Kevin Johns decide to trust him.

On Saturday, that happened eventually. It set the stage for a two-point conversion that ended the game, once ECU coach Mike Houston elected to use a timeout to ice Kemp’s extra point attempt.

If that’s not symbolic of how this season has gone awry, the sequence of events that followed confirmed it.

Out of the timeout, Silverfield felt like he had to go for the win. He had a flashback to the extra point Kemp missed in the first half, not the field goal he had just made. He thought about the offense's inability to run the ball, not the touchdown tailback Rodrigues Clark had just scored.

"That’s where we’re at right now this year," Silverfield said.

But the decision, while certainly debatable, wasn’t the problem. The play call, to have Henigan roll to his right and essentially cut off half the field from his purview, was the issue.

So after Henigan’s last-ditch heave caromed off defenders and fell to the turf incomplete, Houston cried during his on-field postgame interview.

The goal when Houston got the ECU job, he said, was “to get football back to where it’s supposed to be.”

That wasn’t Silverfield’s challenge when he got hired. It is now.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis lost to ECU, and it feels like program is losing its way