Memphis football coach Ryan Silverfield said Wednesday that a “multitude” of Tigers players were contacted last season, even though none of them had entered college football’s transfer portal.
“Multitude of our players from our starters, even guys that were role players, other staffs reached out to,” he said. “Maybe it was a high school coach, or a 7-on-7 coach, or a handler, or an agent, ‘Hey, you can transfer to this school for this amount of money,’ or they can guarantee you a starting job or, ‘If you go here, you’re going to be a first-round pick.'”
Silverfield spoke after the first day of Memphis’ fall practices. The Tigers have sky-high expectations in 2024, with plenty of pundits picking Memphis to be the Group of Five’s representative in the expanded College Football Playoff. That’s in large part due to the players coming back, including All-AAC performers Seth Henigan, Roc Taylor and Chandler Martin.
Even though teams around the country have started practices, Silverfield said the recruiting for next season may have already started.
“Our guys are probably still being recruited right now,” Silverfield said. “I’ve talked to a lot of SEC teams. They say they start recruiting our roster after the third game. So I’m sure our guys will start getting contacted at that point on. But our guys have got to keep the focus. That’s the nature of it.”
Tampering has been a buzzword in college football in the past few years after NIL deals were allowed and an NCAA rule change meant transfers no longer had to sit out a year when changing schools. It means coaches basically have to re-recruit their players after the season, and plenty of coaches have talked about how prevalent tampering — where a team or someone acting on behalf of a team reaches out to a player who isn’t in the transfer portal — has become in the new college football ecosystem.
A team like Memphis is ripe for it. Top players from the Group of Five typically jump to power conference teams during the ensuing season, and that’s why Memphis’ returnees have been such a consistent storyline throughout the offseason.
“If any coach tells you tampering doesn’t exist, they truly have blinders on and have no clue what’s going on in society, or they’re just full of crap,” Silverfield said. “And every coach knows that it goes on.”
Ryan Silverfield, Seth Henigan embracing high expectations
Silverfield said he spent time during spring practices visiting Oregon and their coach, Dan Lanning. A former assistant coach at Memphis from 2016-2017, Lanning has become one of the top coaches in the country and has the Ducks positioned to make the playoffs in 2024.
“We bounced ideas off each other. He’s a fantastic coach, they’ll be a top-five program in the country. But it was great for me and him to sit there and have open relationships,” Silverfield said. “He said, ‘Ryan, no one’s ever told me what I’m doing wrong here. What’d you see here?’ And he told me, and I saw some things. We learned from each other.”
Silverfield said he’s addressed the playoff expectations with the team and has used it in recruiting, but he’ll stop talking about it now that fall practices have started. Henigan, already Memphis’ all-time leading passer, said he’s thought about the expectations for what will be his final collegiate season.
“I’ve said it to some of my teammates and some of my close family members,” he said. “Like, this is it. It’s a make it or break it season for me and my career. I look at my future, my five-year plan, and it all comes down to the next three months.”
Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Ryan Silverfield: Tampering in college football starts during season
The Commercial Appeal
