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.”

Before his final home game, Seth Henigan reflects on 4 years as quarterback

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.

Tigers Podcast: Football’s senior day, basketball’s second-half magic

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

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.

Memphis student from Ghana attends his first American football game

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.