Liberty Bowl 2017: Iowa State vs. Memphis TV Schedule, Time and Odds
The Memphis Tigers will benefit from the rare bowl-game home-field advantage in Saturday's Liberty Bowl.
The Tigers, who fell in The American Championship to UCF, will be involved in a battle of up-and-coming head coaches with the Iowa State Cyclones.
Memphis' Mike Norvell and Iowa State's Matt Campbell may not have left their respective schools after this season, but if their programs keep trending upward, they could occupy a better job in a short amount of time.
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As for the game itself, the Tigers possess one of the highest-scoring offenses in the nation, led by quarterback Riley Ferguson, while the Cyclones have an intimidating defense that caught headlines for its play against some of the Big 12's best programs.
Date: Saturday, December 30
Time: 12:30 p.m. ET
TV: ABC
Live Stream: Watch ESPN
How Iowa State Will Win
The blueprint for success is simple on paper for the Cyclones, and that's to stop Ferguson.
When it comes to executing that plan, Iowa State may be in for a long day, especially since its playing Memphis on its home field.
Any defensive conversation surrounding the Cyclones starts with converted quarterback Joel Lanning, who earned First Team All-American honors for a season that included 110 tackles and 10 tackles for loss.
If Lanning can get to Ferguson, or disrupt his receivers in coverage throughout the first half, the tone will be set for the Cyclones to challenge in the final two quarters.
Offensively, the Cyclones will turn to quarterback Kyle Kempt and running back David Montgomery to try to keep pace with an expected high-scoring output from the Tigers.
When Montgomery has been healthy, he's been a key cog in the Iowa State offense, recording triple digits in rushing yards in four of his last six games. The sophomore 1,000-yard rusher picked up an ankle injury in the November 25 loss to Kansas State, but he will be ready to go in the Liberty Bowl, per Tommy Birch of the Des Moines Register.
If Montgomery is slowed down, the pressure will be on Kempt, a fifth-year senior, to open up the Memphis defense. His main target is Allen Lazard, who had 95 or more receiving yards in three of his last five games.
The Iowa State offense can have its best game of the season on Saturday and still lose. That's how important of a role the Cyclones defense will play. The standout performance on the Cyclones' resume is a 14-7 win over TCU at home on October 28, but they gave up 80 combined points to the two other ranked opponents on their schedule: Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
In those games, Baker Mayfield threw for 306 yards and two touchdowns for Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State's Mason Rudolph lit the Cyclones up for 376 yards and three scores.
Iowa State will hope its experience from playing the top two passers in the FBS during Big 12 play combined with almost a month of preparation will help it come up with a game plan to at least limit the production of Ferguson.
How Memphis Will Win
All of Iowa State's preparation could go for naught if Ferguson plays the way most people expect him to in the Liberty Bowl. The senior will easily eclipse the 4,000-yard mark, and he could do it on the first drive.
Ferguson is coming off his best game of the season, as he threw for 471 yards and four touchdowns in the double-overtime defeat to UCF in The American Championship. The senior has thrown for 300 yards on six occasions, with three of those performances turning into 400-yard clinics.
Ferguson had a better completion percentage and more yards on the road than he did at home, but he had 25 total touchdowns in his home stadium compared to 17 on his travels.
Don't be surprised if Ferguson and the Tigers find the end zone fast and often since the Memphis gunslinger has over 1,000 passing yards in the first and second quarters with 14 of his 36 passing touchdowns coming in the second stanza.
Of course, Ferguson can't do it all by himself, although if he had to, we wouldn't put it past him.
As crazy as it may sound, the Tigers have a balanced distribution on offense, as they attempted 455 passes and ran the ball on 427 occasions.
If Ferguson and leading receiver Anthony Miller are unable to find success in the first half, the Tigers could easily turn to running back Darrell Henderson, who gained 1,154 yards on 130 carries. Henderson isn't the only weapon in the backfield, as Patrick Taylor Jr. scored 13 touchdowns on the ground himself.
Henderson has five straight 100-plus-yard rushing games and Taylor has three, which puts Iowa State in quite the predicament even if Ferguson is contained.
If you haven't heard much about Memphis' defense, there's probably good reason for that since it held just two opponents under 20 points. The two programs that were shut down by Memphis' defense, Tulsa and East Carolina, finished a combined 5-19.
Don't expect the Memphis defense to silence Iowa State's offense, but a few stops scattered throughout the game will be good enough with Ferguson at the helm and the game being played at home.
Prediction
Everything on paper says Memphis should cruise to a victory, but as we know, things rarely go to form in college football.
Ferguson will most likely be the MVP of a game that should see the Tigers pull away at some point.
Memphis 45, Iowa State 28
Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.
All statistics obtained from ESPN.com and Sports Reference.
Odds obtained from OddsShark.com.
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