Tulsa and Navy – two historically successful teams who have fallen on hard times – will square off at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Annapolis, Maryland.

TU (2-8 overall, 1-5 in the American Athletic Conference) lost to Memphis 21-47 last Saturday while Navy (also 2-8, 1-5) fell to No. 12 Central Florida, 24-35.

In the American Athletic Conference, Tulsa, Navy, Connecticut and East Carolina will not be bowl eligible. Central Florida has an outside chance to make the College Football Playoff and could easily get an invitation to a major bowl. Temple, South Florida, Houston and Memphis are bowl eligible. SMU and Tulane both need one more win for bowl eligibility.

The Memphis Tigers scored 17 points on their first three possessions in front of 27,905 fans at Liberty Bowl Stadium

Memphis (6-4, 4-3 AAC) out-gained the Hurricane on the day, 499-252 yards. The yardage total was the lowest for the Hurricane this season, while Memphis’s total yards was the most given up by Tulsa.

Tulsa’s Corey Taylor gained 117 yards and 2 TDs on 24 carries to lead the Hurricane offense, while Seth Boomer completed 14-of-26 passes for 140 yards and had his third straight game with a TD pass. The American Athletic Conference’s leading rusher Darrell Henderson had a game-high 166 yards and two TDs to lead the Tigers.

“I think we’ve done a good job of tackling all year long,” Tulsa coach Philip Montgomery said after the game. “Today we had too many missed tackles. Take nothing away from Henderson, he’s probably causing a lot of that and has done that all year long but we’ve got to do a better job of wrapping up and making sure we get him to the ground.”

Tulsa scored its first points with 8:42 left in the third quarter after a 38-yard Jarion Anderson punt return set-up Tulsa at the Tigers 29-yard line. Four plays later on a 3rd-and-goal from the 18-yard line, Boomer connected with Justin Hobbs for the Tulsa touchdown, cutting the Memphis lead to 27-7.

Memphis responded on the next possession with a 75-yard, 8-play drive that put them ahead 34-7.

Tulsa answered by scoring on its second straight possession as Taylor’s one-yard run capped a 5-play, 73-yard drive. The scoring drive was helped set-up by a Taylor 38-yard run and two Memphis pass interference penalties.

Tigers responded with another 6 points to go ahead 40-14.

“I thought we had some things that coming into the game we felt really good about,” Montgomery said. “We showed glimpses of that. We did a very poor job especially early in the game. This is not a team or defense that you want to be in a lot of third-and-long against.

“We’ve got to do a better job of protecting. We’ve got to do a better job of when it’s not there – that sometimes it’s the best decision to just throw the ball away but you can’t take the negative play and we had way too many of those today.

“We did not get off to a great start and this is not a team you want to fall behind on. We knew coming in that they were going to tempo and we had to do a better job on Henderson. He’s what he’s billed to be -and the best back we’ve seen this year. That being said we’ve got to do a better job of tackling. There were times when we had opportunities to get them behind the chains and we didn’t capitalize on that. You get off to a better start and everything settles down. Seth threw some good balls early and had some opportunities in there but we were not consistent enough today to get the job done.”

The Tigers’ John Williams returned a punt 72 yards for a final touchdown and a 47-14 lead.

TU’s Corey Taylor went over 100 rushing yards for the 4th time this season and the 5th time in his career.