Ryder Burton made his first career start for UAB on Oct. 18, 2025, threw for 251 yards and three touchdowns, and sent then-No. 22 Memphis home from Birmingham with a 31-24 loss in Alex Mortensen's first game as the Blazers' interim head coach. That night sent the Battle for the Bones trophy back to Birmingham for the first time since 2011. Saturday is the 19th meeting in the series, and UAB still leads it 11-7 with the trophy in its building.
Here is the strange part. Almost nobody on the Memphis side Saturday was involved in that loss. Charles Huff is in his first season as Memphis' head coach, Kevin Decker runs the offense, several assistant coaches, including on defense, joined the staff after serving at Southern Miss in 2025, and the two-deep is stacked with transfers, including quarterback Marcus Stokes. UAB beat a quarterback room and a staff that no longer exist. The trophy is still the one Memphis wants back.
And the team going after it just forced four turnovers and put up 318 passing yards in a lopsided conference win. At Charlotte on Saturday, Memphis won 59-8. Stokes went 20-of-25 for 318 yards and five touchdowns without an interception, and the defense forced four Charlotte turnovers, with multiple takeaways created across the Memphis defense. Huff's explanation of the takeaways was the most Huff thing possible. "We've probably been punching at balls in practice since the flood, and we haven't gotten one out since probably 1973."
What the win settled, and what it didn't
Two things Memphis fans have been squinting at since August are now basically answered. Stokes started the opener at UNLV and threw for 223 yards and two touchdowns with no picks, and five games in, the fit with Decker's offense is no longer in question. New defensive coordinator Lance Guidry, reunited with Huff from their Marshall years, finally got from his imported front and secondary the disruption they were brought in for. Memphis won the tackles-for-loss count 5-4 and pressured Charlotte's quarterback on roughly half his dropbacks without leaning on the blitz.
The caveat is obvious. Memphis was favored by 20.5 points, and the Tigers simply did what good teams do to bad ones. The deeper question, whether Huff's total reset can hold Memphis at the double-digit-win standard the program built, doesn't get answered in October against the league's worst team. It gets answered on the road, and Memphis' American schedule saves the hard trips for later, with Tulane next week, then South Florida and Navy in November. Saturday is the last comfortable home setup before that stretch starts.
UAB at Memphis, Saturday 6 p.m. CT, ESPN2
Memphis is an 85% favorite, which is about right. UAB is 3-2 and 1-0 in the American, but its league win came at home over Navy and its last game was a 33-14 win over FCS Samford. After which Mortensen called his own offense "very inconsistent" and said his patience with red-zone execution was running out. This is UAB's first true conference road trip of the season. Memphis should not need another 59-point afternoon.
The stakes attached to this one are real, though. Win it, and Memphis' chance of reaching the American championship game sits around 50%. Lose it, and that drops to about 21%. A home loss to a 3-2 team costs more than a 15-point swing in a model; it would hand Memphis a first American loss in the standings before the Tulane trip. The specific thing to watch is that Charlotte broke a 75-yard untouched touchdown run on Memphis. Against a UAB offense that scuffles for long stretches, one busted run fit is how a 25-point game becomes a nervous one.
The rest of the American slate
Only two other games move Memphis' number much, and both involve teams in the title-game chase.
Charlotte at North Texas: root for Charlotte
Charlotte is a long shot here.
Charlotte wins in Denton about 2% of the time, so this is not a result to count on. It is still the biggest single swing on the board. North Texas losing would lift Memphis' title-game odds by about 5.4 percentage points, because North Texas is a direct competitor for the two championship-game spots. Kickoff is 2:30 p.m. CT on ESPN+. Watch it only if you like free upside.
South Florida at UTSA: root for UTSA
This one actually might happen. UTSA is a near coin flip at home, 45%, and a UTSA win is worth about 3.9 percentage points to Memphis by putting a loss on South Florida. The team Memphis visits in November and the one most likely to be standing between the Tigers and Charlotte, N.C. Thursday, 6:30 p.m. CT on ESPN.
More detail is in the interactive Week 6 guide, and the simulation behind these numbers is explained in the methodology.
The honest version of the week is that Memphis is supposed to win this game, and winning it mostly just keeps the rebuild on schedule. But trophies don't care about expected results. Get the Bones out of Birmingham.