How Ryan Silverfield’s unique journey at Memphis prepared him for championship expectations in 2024 season

Ryan Silverfield barely had time to think when he was named Memphis‘ coach. 

Silverfield, then 39, had just put a stamp on his fourth season as an FBS assistant — all with Memphis — when Mike Norvell left for Florida State on Dec. 8, 2019. Five days later, Silverfield was taking the podium for his introductory press conference as Norvell’s successor. 

That gave him just 15 days to prepare for his first game as Memphis’ full-time coach: the 2019 Cotton Bowl against No. 10 Penn State. In less than three weeks, Silverfield went from a relative unknown outside of the state of Tennessee to a feature act on one of the grandest stages in college football. 

“You know, I’d much rather have that than maybe a bowl game that we were expected to win,” Silverfield told CBS Sports. “Let’s go into something as underdogs. What a hell of a way to start my head coaching career in college football and obviously in a fantastic fashion.”

Memphis lost 53-39, but that experience laid the cornerstone for a culture that finally bore fruit in 2023 when Memphis won 10 games for just the fourth time since World War II and downed Iowa State for the program’s first-ever triumph in the hometown Liberty Bowl. 

The Tigers have rode that momentum to emerge as preseason darlings. They received 23 of 30 first-place votes in the American Athletic Conference preseason media poll. 

But it’s more than just that. Silverfield is on the precipice of doing something no other Memphis coach has accomplished. Capturing the AAC crown would place the Tigers squarely in the College Football Playoff conversation. The AAC would have claimed the Group of Five’s spot in the CFP seven times since 2015 if the current format applied. 

One would think with such big expectations that the years between Memphis’ Cotton Bowl loss and now have been overall kind to Silverfield. That couldn’t be further from the truth. 

This offseason is the first one that Silverfield can look back on and feel any sense of normalcy, if there even is such a thing left in college football. To put the last five years in his own words: “Going through adversity can do one of two things. It can break you or it can build you.”

Luckily for Memphis, Silverfield wasn’t broken by the waves of adversity that followed his coaching debut. 

Any boost that Memphis may have received from 2019’s appearance in Arlington was quickly cut down in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic swept through college sports. Memphis was forced to call off its spring football game and, eventually, a majority of its spring practice slate due to a global catastrophe that no active coach — let alone one just over three months into his tenure — was equipped to deal with. 

“What was unique about that is, it’s not like I can call up Nick Saban and say, ‘Hey, how’d you guys deal with COVID 15 years ago?’” Silverfield said. “It was totally new to everybody. So not only are you learning on the fly to be a head coach and to run your program, and you’re trying to get certain philosophies and certain culture things in place, you’re trying to do it obviously with a major world issue and a pandemic.”

As if that wasn’t enough, Memphis had to cancel two of its first three games of the 2020 season due to positive COVID-19 cases within the program. When the Tigers finally took the field inside Liberty Stadium on Sept. 5, 2020 for Silverfield’s first home game as head coach, it was in front of a limited crowd of 4,537. 

Still, Silverfield guided his team to an 8-3 record, capped by a win against Florida Atlantic in the Montgomery Bowl. 

Not that that bought him any room to breathe. In Spring 2021, the NCAA made sweeping changes to its transfer policy that allowed players to move between schools at least once without losing immediate eligibility. 

Memphis lost three starters to the portal, including Freshman All-American wide receiver Tahj Washington. The Tigers went 6-6 — their bowl game canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic — and 18 scholarship players entered the transfer portal leading up to the 2022 season. 

Memphis went 7-6 that year, and though it won a second straight bowl under Silverfield, it fell to 13-12 overall and 6-10 against AAC opponents from 2021-22. That marked the first time since 2011 that the Tigers had consecutive losing seasons in conference play. 

Silverfield concedes to mounting frustration during that span, a sentiment echoed by some fans that grew accustomed to the heights of the Justin Fuente and Norvell eras, but the university’s decision-makers brought Silverfield back for another year. 

“I trusted the process,” Silverfield said. “I also said this is the way we’re going to do things. We’re going to change the roster, we’re going to change the way we recruit, we’re going to bring in the type of young men that we feel fits this era and the way we want to do things regardless of what the win totals were before.”

Their faith, and Silverfield’s steadfastness, were rewarded in a big way. Memphis stormed to nine regular-season wins in 2023. Its only losses came to a Missouri team that finished the year as a top-10 program, a Tulane team that won 11 games, and an SMU team that captured the AAC title and is set to make its debut in the ACC this season. Two of those were decided by one possession. 

That lost momentum from four years ago has swung back around. Silverfield’s efforts netted him a contract extension through the 2028 season. 

“This is one of those rare offseasons that I haven’t seen since I’ve been here,” Silverfield said. “There’s always a honeymoon phase as a first-year head coach, even when I got here with Norvell going into that first year. But nothing like I’ve seen here with the excitement.”

Seventeen starters from the 2023 squad are back, including quarterback Seth Henigan, who spurned potential transfer portal suitors to return as the most prolific passer in program history. His 3,880 yards passing and 32 touchdowns last season ranked fourth and fifth in the NCAA, respectively. 

The Tigers did fill what holes they had on the roster with transfers that had starting experience at programs like South Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. New running back Mario Anderson rushed for 707 yards with the Gamecocks a year ago, while linebacker addition Elijah Herring was Tennessee’s leading tackler in 2023. 

Memphis is also the only AAC school that finished top four in the conference last season to return its coach, offensive coordinator and quarterback: last year’s champion SMU is gone; Tulane lost coach Willie Fritz to Houston; UTSA has to replace five-year starting quarterback Frank Harris. 

While the schedule isn’t easy — Memphis has to play back-to-back Sun Belt champion Troy and Florida State in the nonconference, and both Tulane and UTSA once AAC play begins — the door is wide open for Silverfield to reach his championship goals. 

All that adversity may finally pay off. 

“There are going to be challenges,” Silverfield said. “There are going to be ups and downs and ebbs and flows of the season. But in order to get there, we’re going to have to bring it every single day and we can’t waste any time.”