Tigers ready for a “Heavyweight Fight” in the Paint Bucket Bowl

The University of Memphis and Arkansas State University are separated by only 76 miles. The Red Wolves have played Memphis more than any other opponent in their 112-year history and the Tigers have only played Ole Miss and Southern Mississippi more often in their history. The two schools are so familiar with one another, administrators from both institutions agreed in the 1950s to designate an area on each campus to allow the winning team to visit and decorate to avoid the risk of campus vandalism and player “kidnappings” leading up to game day. The rivalry trophy, which hasn’t been rewarded for decades, was said to be a literal paint bucket stuffed with old brushes, probably pulled from some college administrator’s garage.

And while there aren’t any decoration rights up for grabs this season, the stakes couldn’t be higher for both programs. In week one, perhaps no other team in all of college football suffered a more humiliating defeat than the Red Wolves. Hoping to at least look like a competent football team as they did on the road against Ohio State in 2022, Butch Jones’s squad lost to the Oklahoma Sooners 73-0 in his first game of year three at Arkansas State. Ryan Silverfield knows the Red Wolves will be ready to give Memphis their best shot regardless of what happened in Norman, however.

“They played a very tough Oklahoma team in Norman, so it’d be a battle for anybody”, Silverfield told the media during his post-practice availability on Monday, “We understand they’re going to have a chip on their shoulder and they’re going to come back and want to give us everything they got. It’s going to be a heavyweight fight.” Butch Jones, who some national writers argued shouldn’t have a job this week, knows that beating the Red Wolves’ biggest rival would cool the hot seat in Jonesboro in a major way. “If you’re a competitor, you can’t wait to get on the practice field,” Jones said when talking about the team’s preparation for Memphis, “You’ve got a rival coming to town that we’ve had two close games with, we’ve come up short, it’s going to be a great environment.”

Jones is completely accurate in stating the Red Wolves have had the Tigers on the ropes for the last two seasons. In 2021, after the Tigers looked as if they were going to run away with the game in the first half, the Red Wolves stormed back behind the arm of James Blackman. The Tigers were a failed Hail Mary away from leaving Jonesboro in a shocking defeat. Last season, Memphis leaned on its home crowd as the “twelfth man” and forced the Red Wolves to commit back-to-back false starts as they were driving to win the game late in the 4th quarter. Seth Henigan acknowledged how difficult winning against the Red Wolves can be just hours after the Tigers soundly defeated Bethune-Cookman last Saturday. “Neither game was easy, that’s a good football team,” Henigan said when asked about his history with Arkansas State.

In a season where Memphis is expected to compete for an American Athletic Conference championship, the Tigers would be wise to throw the final results from last week out the window. As much as defeating Memphis could drastically help Butch Jones’s status at Arkansas State, a scenario where the Tigers drop a game in Jonesboro could equal early disaster for Silverfield and the Tigers. “I understand and appreciate the history of our program and that rivalry, what it means to so many of our former players and fans,” Silverfield said on Monday.

In the 63rd meeting between the two schools, Memphis will look to repeat the success it discovered last week and Arkansas State will strive to leave one of the worst defeats in its program history in the past for good. “It’s all in how you move forward. Our players are resilient, very prideful,” Jones said Monday, “I know we’re all looking forward to getting back against another quality opponent Saturday in Memphis.”