It was the grand finale. A curtain call, if you will.

Seth Henigan was playing his final game at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, and circumstances were not about to stop the four-year starter from dazzling one more time before his final bow.

“Just my last game in the Bowl. … It’s just crazy to think about,” said Henigan, the only FBS quarterback to start four years with the same program this season. “I haven’t soaked it all in completely yet. But it’s all coming to an end, and it feels like it’s gone by so fast.”

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It has, with the last season resulting in plenty of good times and a few bum ones for Henigan and the Tigers, too.

Long before it kicked off against UAB for Senior Night on Saturday, Nov. 16, Memphis had been eliminated from American Athletic Conference Championship contention.

Tulane walloped Navy earlier in the day, giving the Green Wave a ticket to play Army in the Dec. 6 AAC title game and marking the fifth time in five seasons Ryan Silverfield’s Tigers have failed to even play for the conference crown.

Blame two losses, one at Navy and an excusable one to UTSA in San Antonio, for that.

The show, however, must go on, so none of the disappointment was going to keep Henigan from stealing the stage yet again, this time with 299 passing yards and four touchdown throws in Memphis’ 53-18 win over UAB.

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Nothing less should have been expected from someone who may be the most underappreciated among Memphis’ recent run of stellar quarterbacks.

Brady White, Riley Ferguson, Paxton Lynch: All were lauded time and time again for what they did while with the Tigers, and deservedly so.

Lynch threw for 8,863 yards and 59 touchdowns in three years starting from 2013-15, the middle of them ending with a 2014 Miami Beach Bowl win against BYU that capped a 10-3 season.

Ferguson recorded an amazing 7,955 passing yards and 70 TD throws in just two seasons, 2016 and ’17, the first of them ending with 10 wins as well, not to mention an AutoZone Liberty Bowl appearance against Iowa State.

White started his three-season run in 2018, and ended with all-time school records in wins as a starting QB (28), passing yards (10,690) and passing TDs (90). Like Lynch, his middle season starting, 2019, also was his best, White’s ending at 12-2 with a Cotton Bowl appearance against Penn State.

Each of the aforementioned three produced multiple winning seasons, multiple bowl appearances and one year with double-digit victories.

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So has Henigan, who steered Memphis to a revenge win against Iowa State in last season’s Liberty Bowl as the Tigers went 10-3 in 2023.

But with Lynch redshirting his freshman year, Ferguson starting his college career at Tennessee and White transferring to Memphis from Arizona State, Henigan has done something none of the other three did.

He’s started four straight seasons — one of many reasons Silverfield can’t help but beam when he thinks about all Henigan has done since arriving in Memphis as a 17-year-old from Denton, Texas.

“It’s so rare, this day and age, we know, for any player to stay somewhere for four or five years,” said Silverfield, who proceeded to praise Henigan for simply sticking with the program.

“It’s been a win-win for everybody, the fact that this young man said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be a part of this.’ … It’s rare. The loyalty is rare this day and age in college football.”

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So, too, is such sustained productivity, especially during an era in which hard hits and occasional cheap shots take their toll.

But Henigan, son of a high school coach, has had health going for him too.

With that working in his favor and two outings as a Tiger still remaining — one Thanksgiving night against Tulane in New Orleans to end the regular season, the other an inevitable bowl game — Henigan has steadily risen to the top of Memphis’ record in more categories than one has time to count.

The winningest quarterback in program history is within striking distance of East Carolina’s Holton Ahlers to become the AAC’s career leader in passing yards.

Longevity is a reason, sure. But so, too, is pure proficiency and a knack for connecting the ball with the receiver.

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Against UAB, Henigan threw a picture-perfect TD pass to wide-opening running back Greg Desrosiers Jr. out of the backfield, two for touchdowns to tight end Anthony Landphere and another near the end to Jamauri Chislom.

The last was Henigan’s 100th career touchdown as a Tiger.

It made him one of just three active FBS quarterbacks — along with Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel and Washington’s Will Rogers — with 100 or more. It also made him one of four FBS QBs in college football history — joining Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond, Tulane’s Michael Pratt and Georgia’s Aaron Murray, each of whom has spent at least some time on an NFL roster — to hit that milestone while playing for the same program for four years.

“It’s a cool accomplishment,” Henigan said.

Sure is.

It’s what Henigan said next, though, that should tell you all you need to know: It’s all also, he added, “a testament to my teammates over my four years.”

All Henigan truly seemed to care about afterward was that Chislom, buried deep on the depth chart, had the first TD of his college career.

“I didn’t know it was my 100th touchdown pass,” Henigan said. “I just knew it was Jamauri’s first.”

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Classy.

And classic Henigan.

Even with all he’s achieved, Henigan doesn’t even seem to be in the conversation when the subject of Memphis’ best in the current era comes up.

In fact, he doesn’t even crack the top three.

In a poll last week from colleague Geoff Calkins’ show over on the radio, Lynch took the top spot, receiving 41.9% of the more than 1,100 votes cast. White was second at just more than 30%. Ferguson was third at nearly 20%.

Henigan?

He was named by just 7.5%.

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Earlier this year, The Daily Memphian presented its Top 25 Memphis Athletes of this Century series.

White made the list.

Henigan was one of the many Tiger QBs who did not, along with Lynch, Ferguson and even start of the century’s Danny Wimprine.

There are more than a few folks in these parts who focus more on the supposed vanilla nature of Silverfield and coordinator Tim Cramsey’s offense than the amazing things Henigan has done within it.

It’s all a shame — an insult, even, to all accomplished in four years that have flown by for the kid who came to Memphis as a fresh pup, straight from his father Dave’s program at Denton Ryan High.

Silverfield made it clear how he feels: “He’s gonna go down as one of the best to ever do it wearing a Tiger uniform.”

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Perhaps Henigan is not the best. Everyone’s permitted a favorite of their own. But discounting what he’s done just because it’s not flashy enough? Just because he merely does what he’s supposed to do?

No, not right at all.