To paraphrase a certain call from the other end
of Tennessee: It’s football time in Memphis. And
yes, there is a team from the Volunteer State coming
off a nine-win season and a bowl-game victory, with a
record-setting quarterback and a tailback who makes
linebackers weep. This squad — it should be stressed from the
Bluff City to Bristol — calls the Liberty Bowl home.
As year four of the Tommy West era kicks off
Saturday in Oxford against the Ole Miss Rebels, just how high
have expectations risen for University of Memphis football?
In Conference USA’s preseason coaches poll, the Tigers
were voted a close second behind the Louisville Cardinals.
(These two rivals will face each other November 4th on
national television, as ESPN’s Thursday-night game.)
In the same poll, three Tigers were picked
all-conference: junior defensive back Wesley Smith, junior wide
receiver Maurice Avery (safely removed from the basketball
court), and junior tailback DeAngelo Williams. Furthermore,
Williams was forecast to repeat as C-USA’s Offensive Player
of the Year, after establishing new school records for
rushing attempts (243) and yards (1,430) while reeling off 10
straight 100-yard games last year. He has fully recovered from
the knee injury suffered in the penultimate regular-season
game, and Williams, a native of Wynne, Arkansas, finds himself
a preseason Athlon All-America.
And then, of course, there’s quarterback Danny
Wimprine. It only seems like the fifth-year senior has been in a Tiger
uniform since the Hackett administration. Having turned the
U of M passing record book inside out, Wimprine aims to build on his national
exposure as MVP of the New Orleans Bowl triumph last December. In early June,
when rising seniors are more often than not returning kegs between naps, Wimprine
was coordinating a workout schedule with his receiving corps and identifying goals for
the season ahead. “We’ve started something here,” deadpanned Wimprine. “But
you’re never satisfied. Right after we finished
the bowl game, I was thinking about when we’re going back to work. Let’s get better.”
West’s program might define “getting better” in a few different
ways, considering the summer just past. First, senior tailback Derron Parquet (487 yards last season
as Williams’ backup) and junior nose tackle LaVale
Washington were charged with torching an SUV in Eads,
Tennessee, on June 2nd. Then a week later, four Tigers —
Washington, Avery, junior tight end John Doucette and
redshirt freshman tackle Abraham Holloway — were named in a
case involving more than $400 in counterfeit money found
on the U of M campus. Parquet was dismissed from the
squad August 4th, meaning the fate of this team is all the
more contingent on the strength of Williams’ left knee. As
for Washington, he did receive a wrist-slap from the head
coach, despite the arson charges being dropped. Said West in
an August 5th press release, “LaVale Washington has been
a distraction to the football team this summer and will
be suspended for the first two football games.”
In a skewed sense, the off-the-field indiscretions may
be an indicator of this program truly having arrived as a
challenger to the Mid-South’s SEC behemoths. It’s one thing
to win a bowl game and have an All-America candidate
on your roster, but to capture some national attention —
however unsightly — in June? Unheard of in Tiger
Nation, Football Division. Transgressions aside, there are
some questions entering the 2004 campaign that have the
U of M faithful desperate to tailgate. So as you’re
packing for Oxford this weekend, we’ll offer some answers.
· Are expectations too high?
Heck no. Take a look at the Tiger schedule. Yes, the Rebels will be a
formidable opening-week challenge (though David Cutcliffe’s team will
be helmed by a quarterback — Micheal Spurlock — who has thrown
exactly eight passes in his career). But there’s no Mississippi State in 2004, no
Arkansas or Tennessee adding SEC hurdles to the grind toward C-USA play.
On top of that, the two toughest conference games — Louisville and
Southern Miss — are at home.
Injuries, of course, are the great variable when it comes to forecasting a
football team’s fortunes. And if Williams or Wimprine goes down, all bets are off. But if the offensive
stars perform and the defense approximates its standard of 2003
— when it led C-USA in total defense — there’s no reason not
to expect nine or 10 wins from this squad. Another bowl
appearance should be a given.
· Does last season’s success mean anything
this season?
The pat answer would be no. But turn to the inside
back cover of this year’s media guide and staring at you are
no fewer than 30 seniors. From deep snapper Jared Bidne’s
smiling face to the pearly whites of fifth-year senior
Wimprine, you have more experience in a class of Tiger football
players than these parts have seen in years. And every last one of them enjoyed last
year’s nine-win campaign and the bowl victory in New Orleans. Think they
aren’t hungry for more?
In basketball, a freshman can impact a program directly off his
high-school campus. (See Sean Banks.) In Division I football, though, a few
years of weights, film, and spit-spraying hits can do wonders for a player’s
development. Twelve of those 30 seniors are projected starters on the
preseason depth chart, including two offensive linemen (center Gene Frederic
and right tackle David Davis), two defensive linemen (Albert Means and
David McNair) and three defensive backs (Scott Vogel, Cameron Essex, and Tristan Thomas).
Having beaten Ole Miss last year, the leaders on this
team will not be intimidated by Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Better yet, they shouldn’t get rattled when (not if) adversity
presents itself. West says experience is the team’s most
valuable asset. “Outside of our linebackers,” he notes, “every other
position is filled by people who have played.”
· Can Danny Wimprine get better?
Believe it or not, yes. With every yard gained,
Wimprine will establish a new school passing record. (He enters the
season with 7,323.) Same goes for completions (583) and
touchdowns (59). But look at a pair of last season’s biggest
conference tests. Wimprine was 16 for 35 and threw three
interceptions in the loss at Southern Miss. At home against
Cincinnati in late November, Wimprine was eight for 26, with
another three picks. (The Tigers still managed a victory.)
Wimprine remembers those games better than you do, and they
motivate him like no record he’s ever broken. “My biggest challenge
this season,” he says, “is to limit my mistakes.”
Enjoy the last season with number 18 on the field.
(It should be the last season that number is
ever on the field.) Wimprine will leave behind more than records. Because
of what he’s accomplished at the U of M, other blue-chip
high-school quarterbacks may begin to consider Memphis as
a place where they can gain the national spotlight.
· Is DeAngelo Williams a
Heisman Trophy candidate?
No. And it doesn’t matter, not a whit. (Remind
yourself: Andre Ware, Gino Torretta, Rashaan Salaam, and
Danny Wuerffel have Heismans. Jim Brown, Joe Montana,
Marshall Faulk, and Peyton Manning do not.) Williams is doing
to the rushing section of the Tiger record book what
Wimprine has done to the passing section. With only 523 yards,
he’ll break Dave Casinelli’s 41-year-old school record
(2,636). And he’ll have — fingers crossed — a senior season to
pad the numbers (at which time, those Heisman voters just
may remind themselves there’s a team in Memphis).
The confluence of talent the Tigers enjoy with the
two DW’s is unprecedented for the school, and, like the
most thriving symbiotic relationships, each will be that
much better having the other in the same backfield. Williams
even caught 35 passes last season, good for third on the team.
Need some motivation, DeAngelo? In a column
on SI.com earlier this month, Sports
Illustrated‘s Stewart Mandel said 2004 may well be the “Year of the Running Back.”
He listed 10 running backs who represent the “cream of
the crop” nationwide, along with nine who are “poised for
a breakout.” Your name wasn’t on either list.
· Where is the 2004 squad’s greatest strength?
Easy answer: defensive secondary. Say what you will
about the last 20 years of Tiger football, this program churns
out Grade-A defensive backs. Ken Irvin, Jerome Woods,
Mike McKenzie, Idrees Bashir, Reggie Howard, and
Michael Stone, just to name a few. This year’s unit is up to the
standard. Junior safety Wesley Smith was named
all-conference last season after finishing second on the team with 98
tackles. Senior Scott Vogel — a Memphis University
School graduate — was a third-team all-conference selection in
2003 and has 22 starts under his belt entering 2004. Add
senior Cameron Essex and junior O.C. Collins to the mix
and you have an experienced, hard-hitting quartet that will
make big plays hard to come by for Tiger opponents. You have
to like their chances in this weekend’s matchup with
what amounts to a rookie Ole Miss quarterback in Spurlock.
· Where’s the Achilles heel?
Linebacker. You don’t lose the likes of Will Hyden,
Coot Terry, Greg Harper, and Derrick Ballard and not feel it
in your defensive scheme. A pair of sophomores —
Quinton McCrary and Mike Snyder — are expected to fill part of
this void, along with junior-college transfer Carlton Baker.
Junior Tim Goodwell has the most experience among
returning linebackers, though he has yet to start a game.
“I’ve been impressed [with this group],” says West.
“They are very fast. They’re also very inexperienced. They’ve
played a little more mature than they are, probably. I just
hope they continue that through an entire season. We don’t
have a lot of depth. We have to play well up front and
behind them, and I think we’ll be fine. I think we’re as talented
as we were a year ago. We just have to play.”
· Will the Liberty Bowl be packed all season?
Next question. Okay, wait, the answer is no. Last year,
the Tigers set a Liberty Bowl record with an average attendance
of 40,622, an increase of more than 11,000 from 2002. This
means on your average Saturday afternoon with the Tigers in
town, there were more than 20,000 empty seats in the Liberty
Bowl. The average got a big boost from the Ole Miss game
(51,914), but the most impressive turnout was the regular-season
finale, when almost 48,000 fans showed up to see the Tigers play,
yes, South Florida (alas, a 21-16 loss).
This year’s home opponents — Chattanooga,
Houston, Tulane, Louisville, and Southern Miss — aren’t exactly
going to stir the couch potatoes. Tickets will be sold,
though, on the dynamism of Williams and Wimprine and (here
we go again) the success of 2003. Here’s hoping for good
weather on the night of November 4th, when the Tigers and
Cardinals will have ESPN’s Thursday-night audience
counting those empty seats.
· Is the schedule as weak as it appears?
Yes … and no. Seven of the Tigers’ 11 opponents are
ranked 64th(!) in the country or worse by Sports
Illustrated. And that doesn’t even include Chattanooga, a Division I-AA foe. But
if you like the passing game, the Liberty Bowl won’t be a
bad place to be this fall. A troika of star wideouts will be coming
to test the Memphis secondary: Chattanooga’s Alonzo Nix
(90 receptions for 1,060 yards in 2003), Tulane’s Roydell
Williams (66 for 1,006), and Louisville’s J.R. Russell (75 for 1,213).
And another home opponent — Houston — will bring
quarterback Kevin Kolb, who was last season’s C-USA Freshman of
the Year. Finally, you have Southern Miss wrapping up the
home schedule November 12th on a Friday night. The
Black-and-Blue game under the lights? Can’t beat that.
· Can the Tigers crack the Top 25?
This is going to be tough. The strength-of-schedule
element — both for computers and voters with fingers —
is typically too large a factor for C-USA teams to
overcome. The schools from the BCS conferences (Big 10, Big
12, ACC, SEC, Pac 10, Big East) have harder schedules,
by default. You might recall TCU went 11-2 last season
and wound up number 25 in the AP poll.
There are three must-wins for the Tigers to harbor
hopes of a national ranking. They have to win the opener
against Ole Miss, their only BCS-conference opponent. And
they have to win the two nationally televised games against
Louisville and Southern Miss. To solidify the ranking, of
course, the U of M needs to lose no more than two games and
win another bowl game. (For those keeping track, the last
time Memphis finished a season in the Top 25 was 1969,
when they went 8-2, and UPI ranked them 20th in the country.)
In their annual preseason forecast, the folks at
Sports Illustrated don’t stop at 25. They rank all
117 Division I-A programs. In this year’s poll, the
defending national champs from Southern Cal are at number one
(ho-hum). At the bottom? Buffalo (ho-hum). But ranked
32nd in the country — considerably higher than in any such
poll in memory — is the University of Memphis. And if
you want a final anecdote for just how far the Tiger program
has come, you need merely look one ranking below the U of
M in that same copy of Sports Illustrated. At number 33,
you’ll find none other than the Alabama Crimson Tide.
“Our kids have been pretty good about playing one
game at a time,” says West. “When you get into trying to
figure, okay, we’re gonna win this one, win that one, that one’ll
be hard — it just doesn’t work that way. If you lose one,
you can’t jump off the bridge, and if you win one big-time,
you can’t get too high. You just have to go out and play your
tail off every week and at the end of the year, sack ’em up
and see how many we’ve got.”
Sounds like a plan.
