Tigers Set for Birmingham Bowl

No time in the University of Memphis' football history has the program experienced back-to-back, 10-win seasons. That is one of the benchmarks the 9-3 Tigers will seek Wednesday morning at Legion Field as the team battles Auburn in the 10th Birmingham Bowl.

Auburn is 6-6 on the year after a regular season in which the team never won or lost more than two straight games. The Auburn Tigers ended the year losing four of its last six and were 2-6 in Southeastern Conference play.

Memphis is 2-0 in its series with Auburn and will be looking to win multiple games against Southeastern Conference opponents for the first time since beating both Arkansas and Ole Miss during the 1994 season. The 1996 Memphis Tigers defeated both Missouri and Tennessee in the last year Memphis won multiple games against opponents who are currently in the SEC.

Wednesday's bowl game, which kicks off at 11 a.m., will be broadcast nationally by ESPN and can also be seen online via WatchESPN.com and through mobile devices on the WatchESPN app.

Heard locally on AM 600 WREC, the radio broadcast is also available on WAMB-AM 1160 in Nashville and WJAK-AM 1460 in Jackson, Tenn. For fans living outside of those radio markets, the game will be broadcast to subscribers through Memphis All-Access at www.GoTigersGo.com/Watch.

While bowls are neutral-site games, Memphis could certainly be looked at as the road team as Auburn is just a couple hours' drive from Birmingham. But Memphis has relished the role of a road team over the last two years.

The UofM has won eight of its last 10 road games and nine of its last 11 games played away from home.

"They are aware of where we are playing," Memphis interim head coach Darrell Dickey said of the expected road environment on Wednesday. "We have been in hostile environments before. One thing these guys have learned how to do is block out all the distractions and the circumstances which go into the game other than each one's job to do. It's fun to play when there is a large crowd."

Memphis will look to match the excitement of last year's inaugural Miami Beach Bowl, a game against BYU the Tigers won 55-48 in double-overtime, and in which quarterback Paxton Lynch was responsible for seven touchdowns (four passing, three rushing), tying an NCAA bowl record.

Lynch was named the most valuable player of the Miami Beach Bowl and enters this year's Birmingham Bowl having had another record-breaking season. This year he has completed 280-of-406 passes for 3,670 yards and 28 touchdowns.

With seven touchdown passes thrown in the final regular season game, a 63-0 shutout over SMU 32 days ago, Lynch established new school records for touchdown passes in a game and a season at Memphis.

While Memphis will look to play with one record-setting quarterback, Auburn could utilize two signal callers who each passed for 1,000 yards during the year in Wednesday's bowl game.

Junior Jeremy Johnson has completed 94-of-156 passes for 1,042 yards and nine touchdowns in 11 games played. Sean White, a red-shirt freshman, has played in six games and completed 75-of-130 passes for 1,064 yards and a touchdown.

Auburn's offense will face a Memphis defense which was playing at its best at season's end.

In Memphis' final regular-season game, the Tigers earned their first shutout in a conference game since 1971. In the win, Memphis tied an NCAA record for most fumbles recovered for touchdowns in the game with two. The UofM held SMU to just 97 yards of total offense – 33 rushing and 64 passing. It was the first time since 1962 that Memphis held an opponent to less than 100 yards of total offense.

Senior linebacker Leonard Pegues led the Tigers during the regular season with 65 tackles. The senior had seven tackles for lost yardage. Wynton McManis, who like Pegues is a senior linebacker from Olive Branch, Miss., is second on the team with 57 total tackles.

Auburn's defense will have to stop a Memphis team which became the first in school history to notch over 6,000 yards of total offense (6,125 yards) and also set a school record by scoring 512 points during the regular season. Memphis averaged 42.7 points per game.

Led by Doroland Dorcues' 613 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns, Memphis' running game accounted for 186.2 yards per game on the ground.

Lynch passed for better than 300 yards in eight straight games during one point in the season and the Tigers' averaged 324.2 yards passing during the year.

Birmingham Bowl Notes: Memphis players on Wednesday will wear slate gray helmets with blue tiger stripes for the first time in program history … The helmets will also feature a green ribbon with outlines of the states of Mississippi and Alabama to raise awareness of storm victims in both states in late December … Memphis is 5-3 all-time in bowl games … The Tigers' last game played at Legion Field was a 46-9 win over UAB in the "Battle for the Bones" … The Tigers are 3-6 in games played in the historic stadium.

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Players Mentioned

Paxton Lynch

Wynton McManis

Leonard Pegues

University of Memphis Athletics