{"id":70557,"date":"2024-12-18T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=70557"},"modified":"2024-12-18T12:00:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T17:00:08","slug":"mountaineers-throw-away-the-frisco-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/18\/mountaineers-throw-away-the-frisco-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountaineers Throw Away the Frisco Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we wrote in our preview for last night’s Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl<\/a>, turnovers made the difference in the outcome. Indeed, West Virginia found itself driving in the waning minutes of the game. On the heels of a throw forced into double coverage, however, the Mountaineers throw away the Frisco Bowl. The Memphis Tigers emerged with a 42-37 win.<\/p>\n

Mountaineers Throw Away the Frisco Bowl<\/h2>\n

In some ways, the result offered a perfect finale to the Neal Brown era<\/a> (though Chad Scott walked the sidelines as interim coach). The Mountaineers found themselves with a chance to get a win over a ranked Memphis team in a single-score game. Signal caller Garrett Greene<\/a> comes up just short on a slide to get a first down. An exciting comeback effort was hampered by a rule that Greene had fallen victim to earlier in the year. Because he was short, Greene had to hurry the next play. The result? He rushed a throw into double coverage, and Tiger linebacker Elijah Herring<\/a> picked off the throw.<\/p>\n

By some measures, Greene had a career game, competing nearly 73% of his throws for 328 yards and adding 95 yards on the ground. He accounted for three of the team’s five touchdowns and played turnover-free football for 59 minutes. Led by Greene’s effort, the team fought for 60 minutes. Mistaken execution (and repeat mistakes), however, led the effort to fall short.<\/p>\n

Simply, that is what the Mountaineers have been through Neal Brown’s tenure, for whatever reason. The roster has most of the right pieces. The talent is there in almost every position group (except the secondary, which has struggled). Mental mistakes in execution, however, have kept this team from reaching its full potential under Brown.<\/p>\n

Against that backdrop, then, maybe the best thing for the program is to let the recently-hired Rich Rodriguez<\/a> bring back that hard-edge mentality for which he is known.<\/p>\n

Memphis Turns it Up to Eleven<\/h3>\n

The Memphis Tigers have played in 65 seasons as an FBS school. They eclipsed 10 wins just once before in 2019 when they finished 12-2. Mike Norvell<\/a> turned that success into a head coaching gig at Florida State where the results have been notoriously inconsistent. Ryan Silverfield<\/a> took charge of the program five years ago. Since then, he brought the Tigers bowling in four of five seasons. Now, under his tenure, Memphis is undefeated in those four bowl appearances.<\/p>\n

Last season, Silverfield led the Tigers back to the ten-win mark. Based on that success, many had the Tigers penciled in as a dark horse G5 playoff contender. Tough losses to Navy and UTSA, however, kept that from happening. Still, the Tigers clinched their second straight ten-win season with a win over Tulane in the season finale. They entered the Frisco Bowl hungry for that last win, though.<\/p>\n

Led by senior signal caller Seth Henigan<\/a>, who combined for 355 yards and two touchdowns, the Tigers turned it up to eleven. Silverfield might find himself a Power Four job in the near future. Wake Forest has a current opening, though it appears Jake Dickert may take that job<\/a>. This leaves an opening for Washington State, and other dominoes could fall.<\/p>\n

Regardless, after the Mountaineers throw away the Frisco Bowl, Silverfield and his Tigers can enjoy their continued success.<\/p>\n

\"mountaineers
Photo courtesy: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we wrote in our preview for last night’s Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl, turnovers made the difference in the outcome. Indeed, West Virginia found itself driving in the waning minutes of the game. On the heels of a throw forced into double coverage, however, the Mountaineers throw away the Frisco Bowl. The Memphis Tigers emerged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2744,"featured_media":70563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7361],"tags":[34544,34586,2727,5819,498,1712,34545,34585,237],"class_list":["post-70557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big12","category-bowl-games","tag-2024-bowl-games","tag-elijah-herring","tag-frisco-bowl","tag-garrett-greene","tag-memphis-tigers","tag-neal-brown","tag-ryan-silver-field","tag-seth-henigan","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70557"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70564,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70557\/revisions\/70564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}