Tigers top Austin Peay 27-6 for Porter’s second win

By Adam Douglas

Sports Editor

 

It wasn't pretty, but before an announced crowd of 18,808, The University of Memphis Tigers football team ended their 11-game losing streak and defeated the Governors of Austin Peay State University, 27-6. The Tigers (1-2) won for just the second time in their last 15 contests, a dubious feat dating back to the 2010 campaign where they struggled to a 1-11 finish. The revamped Tigers defense, which gave up more than 400 yards of total offense to each their two previous opponents, held the Governors to 368 yards for the game, a notable improvement.

"I want to take my hat off to our defense, under the circumstances, as well as my defensive staff," head coach Larry Porter said. "For them to pick up and almost hold an opponent scoreless the whole game, and overall, despite the circumstances, I'm excited about them."

Freshman quarterback Taylor Reed carved up the APSU defense to the tune of 332 passing yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. One of those touchdowns came on a bizarre play where Reed connected on an 18-yard pass to senior tight end Andrew Ene-inta, who fumbled the ball only to have it recovered by the Tigers for a 22-yard touchdown.

"Things slowed down for me this week, but I have to give credit to those skill players on the outside making plays…It definitely felt good to have things go our way like that," Reed said.

Junior linebackers Akeem Davis and Kenyatta Johnson each had 10 tackles for the re-tooled Tiger defense. But despite the changes on that side of the ball, Tiger players said there's still a lot more work to be done.

"It's a great win – we're going to embrace it, hold on to it and let it soak in – but we have SMU on Saturday," Davis said. "But I have flaws in my game just like we all do. So we have to just keep on practicing, and they say practice makes perfect, but around here at The University of Memphis we believe that perfect practice make perfect."

Not only were players relieved to snap the program's longest losing streak in 25 years, Porter, too, was in better spirits, briefly joking about the state of the program through the last 15 games.

"We've been losing," Porter said, laughing. "Under the circumstances or not, we needed a win."