Phil Steele reveals his best bet for West Virginia’s bowl game against Memphis

Phil Steele reveals his best bet for West Virginia’s bowl game against Memphis

Better take a nap so you can stay awake tonight for the Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl between the West Virginia Mountaineers and the Memphis Tigers.

Like every week on the In the Gun podcast, we called up college football expert Phil Steele to get his thoughts on the WVU matchup.

“I think they have a chance provided everyone concentrates on the game. Sometimes when you have an interim head coach, maybe the coaching staff is looking for jobs sending out resumes and you’re wondering if players are visiting the portal. But with only four players in the portal for West Virginia so far, you kind of feel like they could be focused on the game. And if that’s the case, I think their offense will get rolling. I only know of 15 points against Texas Tech, but they had put up some points before that.”

“Go back and watch the Memphis-UTSA game. UTSA largely had its way, with the Memphis defense scoring 44 points. I really liked what I saw in Memphis against Tulane. I think it’s important to win ten games, especially when you’ve scored all your goals. Memphis wanted to be the playoff team; They were picked by a lot of people to be a playoff team. Not mine. In fact, they didn’t even win the American Conference this year. But after going into the Tulane game and winning it, they now have 11 wins this year.

“They have a very strong offense. Seth Henigan is a dangerous quarterback, and when playing against West Virginia’s secondary, you can expect him to score some points. But I think West Virginia with Garrett Greene, with (Jahiem) White, with (CJ) Donaldson, I think they can move up some points too. My best play here is probably going with the over. Sometimes these bowls are a no-brainer and you wonder who wants to be there. I know Memphis wants to be there. I think West Virginia wants to be there, and that means it could be a fun game. And a lot of times when the game doesn’t mean anything like that, in bowl prep and when you have extra time to prepare for the bowl, you’ll see some trick plays, some four downs, what the heck, let’s get going on fourth-and-one and sometimes it turns into a high-scoring game. We’re seeing a lot of these bowl games that aren’t on New Year’s Day turn out to be high-scoring because of that factor.”

MORE STORIES FROM WEST VIRGINIA ON SI

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How does WVU replace Josiah Trotter? Here are a handful of transfer linebacker options

Five QB options West Virginia should consider in the transfer portal

WVU reveals uniform combination for Frisco Bowl vs. Memphis

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