It’s rare for a college football team to both qualify for a bowl and wrap up the season on its own field, with most of those bonus games requiring a trip of some length. So the Memphis Tigers will try to make the most of a rare luxury when they face Iowa State on Friday in the Liberty Bowl and get all the comforts of home.
Well, almost all of them.
The Cyclones (7-5) will work from the sideline that Memphis usually occupies for its home games at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, pushing the Tigers (9-3) to the visitors’ side. Memphis will get to use its own locker room, though, as it seeks just the fifth season in program history with at least 10 victories and fourth since 2014. The Tigers also can earn some payback for 2017, when they lost this bowl to Iowa State by a single point despite being ranked.
Coach Ryan Silverfield said his Tigers understand both the history of this bowl — currently sponsored by AutoZone, it dates to 1959, with the first five played in Philadelphia and the one after that in Atlantic City before the move to its current locale — and what it means to Memphis.
“National television, and then also the opportunity to go down in history as one of the top five winningest teams in program history,” Silverfield said Thursday. “Those are huge things that are at stake, and our guys will certainly come out swinging.”