This is a 10* play on MEMPHIS

Memphis quickly established itself as the potential "Group of 5" team to get a New Year's Day Bowl slot when they beat Ole Miss in Week 1. The Tigers are now 3-0 and surprisingly it's been the defensive side of the ball that's been more impressive. Sure, the offense scored a combined 97 points against Southern and South Alabama the last two games. But the defense has given up only 40 points all year, thereby reducing the total PPG scored in Memphis' games to just under 51, which is down from 75 a year ago. This Thursday they welcome in Navy for a key AAC West showdown. Navy has played only two games, both against lesser competition (Holy Cross, East Carolina). As you would expect, the Midshipmen didn't struggle to win either game. They beat Holy Cross by 38 and ECU by 32. After a down year last season (finished 3-10 SU!), Navy is back to running the ball effectively as they're averaging 371 yards/game on the ground. But we look for them to get slowed down here by this vastly improved Memphis defense. This group held Ole Miss, an SEC team, to 10 points and 173 yards. The most yards gained by any Memphis opponent so far is 258 and that was, surprisingly, Southern. But even there, the Tigers defense performed better than you think. Southern gained 58 yards on its first two snaps, than only 200 the rest of the game on 3.6 yards per play. Southern also scored a defensive TD in that game. While conference play will ultimately determine if this Memphis' D is the "real deal" or not, we think it is and the Tigers closed last year by covering six of their last seven games against American opposition. They are simply the much better team here. Play on MEMPHIS

AAA