Memphis begins life with a target on its back tonight at Tulsa

Can Memphis win the American Athletic Conference and earn the group of five New Year’s Six bowl bid? Could they even make a push, however unlikely, for a spot in the College Football Playoff?

Whatever Justin Fuente’s Tigers accomplish between now and the end of the year will be done with a major target on their back. That’s the price of success -- or beating a top-15 SEC team in Ole Miss last week.

Memphis travels to Tulsa tonight for a tricky AAC road game (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) against a 3-3 Golden Hurricane side that, in theory, shouldn’t be a problem for the 6-0 Tigers. But weird stuff happens in conference road games -- remember last year when Kansas almost beat TCU? -- especially when it’s a heavily-favored side coming off a big win to face an underdog.

A few things are working in Memphis’ favor, though. Bill Blankenship, who was a Tulsa assistant from 2007-2010 and the Golden Hurricane coach from 2011-2014, is an offensive analyst at Memphis. He recruited most of Tulsa’s players and could provide to the coaching staff and players a different level of expectations beyond what’s shown on film.

Second, Fuente is a good coach (coming to a power five program near you!) who, per the Memphis Commercial-Appeal’s Tom Schad, hasn’t seen a letdown in his team during practice this week. From Schad’s mailbag, on Fuente sensing some urgency this week:

That’s a really good sign, in my opinion, because I’m sure Fuente was on high-alert for traces of complacency. Had he seen anything amiss, I promise you he would not have been that happy with practice. So that was good for Memphis. From my own personal observation, the players seem to be handling it pretty well. I think the leaders on the team have truly, honestly bought into the whole “going 1-0” thing. And that’s huge. Coaches are preaching urgency, but I think the players are preaching it themselves, too.

And it’s worth noting, too, that Memphis ranks No. 26 in Football Outsiders’ F/+ against Tulsa’s No. 87 ranking. Upsets that significant usually don’t happen -- especially when the opposing team has a lagging defense, as Tulsa does.

After Tulsa, Memphis hosts Tulane. Then its season really gets interesting, with back-to-back-to-back games against Navy, at Houston and at Temple. If it can run through that stretch undefeated, and then beat Temple again in the AAC Championship, it’ll definitely go to a New Year’s Six bowl. But that’s an awfully difficult stretch.