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How Memphis football quarterback Seth Henigan's family shaped his past and future
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- How Memphis football quarterback Seth Henigan's family shaped his past and future
"You're either getting better," reads the acronym on Memphis football quarterback Seth Henigan 's social media bio, "or you're getting worse. You never stay the same."
Henigan 's football origin story is well told: Part of a kind of Texas high school football dynasty, Henigan played for his father, Dave Henigan, at Denton Ryan High School in Denton, Texas. High school is where he learned that saying, by the way — his dad would yell it out to the team during practices.
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It was only two and half years ago that Henigan arrived in the Bluff City, winning the offseason battle to replace Brady White as an 18-year-old who packed up the day after the Texas state championship game to drive to Memphis and enroll early in college. Since then? His completion percentage and yards have gone up, but his interceptions and QB rating have gone down.
Henigan — and probably every other quarterback in the country — will say there's only one stat that matters at the game's most important position: Wins and losses. That number was 7-6 for Henigan's first two seasons as a Tiger, but it's 5-2 so far this time around.
And that journey rolls back into a familiar spot this Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN+) — Denton, where Memphis will face North Texas in front of at least 20 Henigan family members and close friends.
Tigers' Seth Henigan (2) warms up before the game between University of Memphis and Boise State University in Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, September 30, 2023.
ROAD TEST : What Memphis football coach Ryan Silverfield said about playing at North Texas
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Seth and Ian
The other part of Henigan's story that has been well-documented from the time he was a high school player through his time as a Tiger? How he earned the starting job after his older brother, Ian, got injured during the season.
But what was that like for Ian, now a student at the University of Texas?
"Basically losing the starting job to your brother, and your dad is making that call," he said. "A bizarre scenario. It was really weird."
Ian and Seth were best friends growing up. Ian was a wide receiver until his freshman year of high school, when the freshman team's quarterback got hurt and he was asked to step into the role. He progressed until his senior year, when Denton had a quarterback vacancy following the graduation of Spencer Sanders , formerly of Oklahoma State and now of Ole Miss.
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The competition? Ian vs. Seth, with Dave making the call. Or maybe Ian was always going to be the starter while Seth backed him up. Ian doesn't remember exactly, but he does remember, without hesitation, the one stat that matters.
For all the great quarterbacks who have played for the Raiders through the years, Sanders and Seth Henigan among them, no one has Ian's perfect record as a starting quarterback. Sure, it was only a few games. But he never lost a game as Denton's starter.
Nevertheless, he separated his shoulder early in the season, so Seth took over. By the time Ian was physically able to return, Seth had become a star.
"It was like, completely, undeniably his. Come end of the regular season, into the postseason, I was for the most part healthy. He had just won the job," Ian Henigan said. "The whole thing hurt. But then as soon as I see my brother playing and tearing it up, it's like, how could there ever be bad blood there? Seth was my best friend growing up, and in high school."
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Ian came back near the end of the season, playing in some goal-line packages and trick plays. But it was Seth's job from that point until the moment he graduated, and his 39-2 record pretty much speaks for itself.
Still, there were plenty of college coaches who looked at the slew of talented skill position players and assumed Seth was just a cog in the machine. Dave tried to convince college coaches that Seth had a "photographic football memory," where he can pick out seemingly any play from his career and tell you where the defensive backs were standing or where the ball should have been thrown.
"People used to look at me like I was crazy," Dave Henigan said.
But Kevin Johns didn't. Then the offensive coordinator at Memphis, Johns and head coach Ryan Silverfield pitched Henigan on exactly what he and his dad were looking for in an offense and a college environment. There was interest from other schools — and a late offer from North Texas, the hometown team — but Henigan was headed east.
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A long line of Henigan coaches
Seth Henigan already knows what he wants to be when he grows up — a high school football coach, like his dad and his grandpa. He remembers giving a presentation at a middle school career fair about wanting to be a neurologist, but he concedes that was probably because he looked it up and saw how much money he'd make.
"That path is gone," he says now, with a business management major not exactly on the pre-med track.
Maybe it's just something about being a Henigan. Ian grew up assuming he'd be a high school coach, not even considering until middle school that he could do something else (his dad told him one day around then that he was too smart to be a football coach).
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Dave was quite the quarterback himself. That story about Ian suffering an injury midseason and getting replaced by Seth isn't exactly unique, of course. Tom Brady replacing Drew Bledsoe and Steve Young replacing Joe Montana might come to mind. But what about Dave Henigan replacing Troy Kopp for the University of the Pacific, in 1992?
Dave started out coaching at the collegiate level and met his wife, Laurie, when he was a graduate assistant at SMU. They stayed in Texas, and he rose up the ranks as a high school coach. He's been the head coach at Denton Ryan since 2013. The youngest Henigan, Quin, is now a sophomore at Denton Ryan and could be playing for his dad soon.
So Seth knows what he's headed for. He wants to coach at that level because he sees how difficult it is to coach in college, with the hours spent away from families and constant time on the road. His dad was always around when he was growing up, whether it was at the dinner table or on the sidelines.
That's all in the distant future, though. Now he's focused on winning games, on getting better and not staying the same. The soft-spoken 20-year-old has always had an edge to him when he's on the field — "borderline cocky," Dave calls it — but he wouldn't call himself a flashy player or character. He'll probably be the same as a coach.
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"I never really wanted any attention, anyway," he said. "I just want to play ball."
Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @thejonahdylan.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Memphis QB Seth Henigan's family shaped his past and future
