Memphis football is operating like it never could before this offseason | Giannotto

The teenaged offensive lineman said into the camera that he liked Memphis football because it’s going to the ACC. He said it without a hint of sarcasm or baggage from the decade-plus of false starts and empty promises the university has endured in conference realignment. He said it as if someone from Memphis said it to him that and he believed it. 

 "They're building," Peyton Joseph told the recruiting site On3.com recently. 

Welcome back to Memphis football's offseason moment, brought to you now by a boost from FedEx.

Joseph would have never considered the Tigers even a year ago. Probably wouldn’t have been talking to them at all. He's considered one of the 10 best interior lineman in the country in the 2025 recruiting class, but he's high school teammates in Georgia with Antwann Hill, Jr., a four-star quarterback prospect and former Deion Sanders commit at Colorado, who's also considering Memphis.

Perhaps they’re ready to confound well-worn expectations like Tennessee’s leading tackler from 2023 just did. Linebacker Elijah Herring announced his transfer to Memphis last week, a rare move across state for a player coming off the season he had in Knoxville. 

But these suddenly seem like rare times for Tigers football.

Overlooked and underappreciated, especially before the past decade, Memphis football is suddenly operating in a manner we haven't seen before, and with the kind of financial heft only seen in men's basketball traditionally. The Tigers aren’t a power conference team, but they’ve got the spending power to match some of them.

Ryan Silverfield, already a strong recruiter before FedEx infused $25 million in NIL money for Memphis over the next five years, is wielding it by chasing players his predecessors never had a shot to get.

It used to be once an SEC team was involved with a player – like really involved, with a committable offer – Memphis didn’t stand a chance. Not with recruits and not with transfers. But not anymore.

Not in the NIL era. Not for at least the next couple years, when the Group of Five will have access to the College Football Playoff. Memphis is the talk of the NIL world and it can offer a shot at the national championship.

The professionalization of college sports is happening rapidly now, so at least there are parts of it working in the Tigers' favor for a change. The thought of telling a recruit Memphis is bound for the ACC eventually, while still not accurate, seems less far fetched than it ever has.

Through the Tigers' NIL capabilities – and, admittedly, the further thinning out of the Group of Five ranks with the departures of schools like Houston, Cincinnati, UCF and SMU from the AAC – they are distinguishing themselves in a manner few outside the current power structure can. 

The football team seems best positioned to capitalize. Memphis is one of the trendy picks to represent the Group of Five in the first 12-team playoff. 

There's a quarterback in Seth Henigan who could have taken offers to play in a “better” league and instead will be something of a unicorn in modern day college sports – a fourth-year senior starter. There's a running back in Mario Anderson who led South Carolina in rushing last season. And now, a couple weeks after the FedEx deal got announced, here comes the leading tackler from Tennessee.

There are surely Vols fans trying to poke holes in the Herring commitment. He might have been an odd man out of the starting lineup since the player he replaced last season is back from injury. It’s presumably why Herring, from Riverdale High in Murfreesboro, entered the transfer portal after spring practice.

But he proved himself an SEC-caliber player, not just a prospect headed to the SEC who might never see the field in a meaningful way. He has two years of eligibility left. He visited Colorado and had another visit set up with Kansas State before committing to Memphis.

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It usually works the other way. Usually Memphis gets the transfers who went to the SEC school and didn't play enough. Or the recruit who got passed over by the SEC school. It doesn't beat out Primetime. It gets the players looking for a place to prove themselves. Like leading receiver Roc Taylor.

Taylor's back at Memphis this season too, despite overtures from schools he probably would have left for in another era. He originally committed to Tennessee out of high school when Jeremy Pruitt was coach. He had the scholarship pulled when Josh Heupel took over. It worked out for the Tigers.

So consider Herring the latest bit of good karma, in addition to being a promising linebacker.

Unlike Heupel, he's willing to play in Memphis.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X:@mgiannotto