Memphis's Win Over Arkansas Adds to American Conference's Stacked Resume

The league has enjoyed a tremendous September.

Memphis's Cortez Braham celebrates a touchdown against Arkansas Saturday. / Chris Day/The Commercial Appeal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

If the American Conference's teams are aware of the constant churn of press about the daunting resource gap between power and non-power conferences in college athletics—well, they haven't read it.

The league has been on absolute fire to start the 2025 season, and on Saturday it claimed one of its highest-profile victims yet. Rallying from an 18-point deficit, Memphis stunned Arkansas 32–31 before a raucous home crowd at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.

The victory came less than 24 hours after Tulsa polished off Oklahoma State 19–12 in Stillwater. As Chris Vannini of The Athletic pointed out, the league's fertile year includes two SEC wins, two Big 12 wins, an ACC win and a Big Ten win (not to mention North Texas blowing out Washington State last Saturday).

The American Conference now has two wins over the SEC, two over the Big 12 and one over the Big Ten and ACC each this season. pic.twitter.com/pogSh5oCTS

— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) September 20, 2025

With the win, the Tigers are a strong candidate to take over the driver's seat in the race for a CFP berth—depending on what Tulane does against Ole Miss.

Not bad for a league that spent most of 2024 looking up at a strong Mountain West.

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