Category: From My Seat

Well, it took me
precisely one sentence in writing about the 2008-09 University of Memphis
basketball team to consider the impact of losing three stars from last year’s
Final Four squad.

As I’ve pondered angles for John Calipari’s ninth season in
Memphis — one where he will officially become the most decorated and successful
coach in the program’s history — the losses of Derrick Rose, Chris
Douglas-Roberts, and Joey Dorsey (a trio that played fully 40 percent of the
team’s minutes a year ago and scored virtually half the points) continue to
whisper in my brainstorming ear.

Because however you choose to forecast the
season ahead — one with a better than decent chance of another march through the
NCAA tournament – those three missing pieces play a part. Here are four factors
to chew on before the Tigers open the new campaign Saturday night at FedExForum.
(And once the ball is tipped, last year’s stars are indeed history.)

• Willie Kemp
revisited. There’s not another junior point guard in the country who didn’t
start a single game last season but is expected to make the kind of impact Kemp
should this winter. Having started all but one game as a freshman — and those
Tigers went 33-4, remember — Kemp handed over playmaking duties to Rose last
season, stomaching a drop in minutes from 21.4 per game to 13.8. (Let’s not
forget, though, that Kemp hit four of five three-pointers against Mississippi
State in the second round of last spring’s NCAA tournament, or there would have
been no Final Four appearance.) With freshman Tyreke Evans — the highly
acclaimed McDonald’s All-America — sharing the backcourt, Kemp will be a
supplementary scorer. But with the number of rookies on this year’s squad, his
presence as a ball-handler and court general will be invaluable to Calipari.

“I’ve got to go
out there and try my best to run this team,” says Kemp. “I’ve got to talk more,
watch film more. I’ve got to know where all my teammates should be on the floor.
Last year, as a two guard, I had to develop my shot, but this year, I spent all
summer working on my ball handling.”

• Two starters,
six rings. In this year’s media guide, each returning player has his photo above
a certain number of rings earned during his career as a Tiger. Under the
portraits of both Antonio Anderson and Robert Dozier there are three shiny (if
black-and-white) jewels: two with “Elite Eight” engraved on them and another
with “Final Four.”

No Tiger player
has been a part of more wins than the 126 Dorsey enjoyed. But with 23 this
season, both Anderson and Dozier would surpass that lofty standard. (And
consider the number: an average of more than 30 victories per season.) But the
roles of Calipari’s most prominent supporting players must change this year to
reach the heights to which they’ve grown accustomed. For three years, Dozier and
Anderson have deferred on offense to the likes of Rodney Carney, CDR, and Rose.
On the defensive end, Dozier has played a critical role as a rebounder and
shot-blocker, but he’s always had Dorsey behind him as a goalkeeper of sorts.
Having tested the NBA draft waters last spring, Dozier has a handle on what it
will take for him to join his former teammates in the pros, and becoming a
difference-maker — at both ends of the floor — will be essential.

As for Anderson,
he’ll join Dozier as a 1,000-point scorer before his final season is complete.
But it’s the little things — big, in the eyes of his coaches — that make
Anderson the rudder of the Tiger ship, or the “glue” in modern hoop parlance.
Anderson will guard the opponent’s top scorer (unless he happens to be a
center), he’ll handle point-guard duties in a pinch, and he’ll knock down open
jumpers when teams sag into a zone defense. The statistic that speaks volumes
about Anderson’s value over the last three years is his assists-to-turnovers
figure, which is well over two-to-one (371 assists to 161 turnovers). Perhaps
the most significant preseason variable for this team is Anderson’s health. Shin
splints can be murder on glue’s adhesiveness.

• Another one-year
wonder. The most unfair comparisons you’ll hear about this year’s Tigers will be
between Evans and Rose. Like Rose, Evans comes to Memphis with plenty of time in
the national spotlight, and from a metropolis (Philadelphia) well beyond the
reach of garden-variety regional recruiting. Like Rose, Evans is likely “one and
done” as a college player. But while Evans is a gifted scorer, he’s not the
otherworldly athletic specimen Rose embodies, and not being a natural point
guard, he won’t impose himself on a game in as visible a manner as Rose so often
did. If parallels are to be drawn, it would be more appropriate to view Evans as
CDR’s successor for this year’s Tigers: a midsize (6’6″) wing player who can
score inside or outside, with the quickness and versatility to force turnovers
on the defensive end.

• New blood, new
energy. If there is any quality in running his basketball program that Calipari
truly loathes, it’s complacency. Nothing will land a player more firmly on the
Memphis bench than body language that says “neutral.” The sheer number of
rookies in uniform for the 2008-09 Tigers should play a significant part in
eliminating complacency, even when dry periods on the schedule — the Tigers
still play in Conference USA — might otherwise lead to coasting by veterans
who’ve seen brighter lights. For all its success over the last three seasons,
the Tiger program is new to Tyreke Evans. It’s virgin territory for C.J. Henry
and Wesley Witherspoon, for Matt Simpkins, Roburt Sallie, and Angel Garcia.
That’s virtually half of Calipari’s roster that has never so much as practiced
at an NCAA tournament site. With apologies to William Faulkner, the past —
however glorious for the Memphis Tigers — is indeed past.

“We’re still
looking for chemistry,” says junior guard Doneal Mack, another veteran Calipari
will be counting on to guide the way for the rookies. “We have people out there
who are willing to work, but we break down more [than we should] defensively. We
have players who don’t know certain positions on the court and, being a motion
offense, they have to know all the positions.”

Calipari
understands the challenges ahead are different from those he’s seen in recent
years. “I can’t be telling everybody everything,” he said after the November 4th
exhibition against Christian Brothers University. “It’s got to be somebody on
the court doing it. It might be Antonio, it could be Willie. We’re not going to
be a team that’s up 30 on people this year. We’re gonna have to grind it out a
little better, and be smarter.

“We have a good,
an athletic team,” he added. “They should be a great defensive team. Now, can
someone lead, and give us that organization on the floor? That’s where we have
to get before February.”

Whenever people
have asked me about this year’s Memphis Grizzlies, I’ve shared the same line:
I’m not sure they’ll be any better than last year’s 22-60 squad, but they’re
already more interesting.

It’s never fun
seeing your team struggle, particularly over the course of a six-month, 82-game
schedule, stuck in the crossfire of the NBA’s Western Conference power elite.
But there’s nothing worse in sports than watching an aging team struggle, which
is where the 2008-09 Grizzlies gain somewhat of a hall pass for the season
ahead.

My colleague Chris
Herrington did his usual bang-up job in forecasting what we might expect this
winter from the NBA’s third youngest team. (For one more dose of perspective,
consider that the Grizzlies’ entire starting lineup on opening night in Houston
was younger than one Joey Dorsey, who sat on the Rockets’ bench all 48 minutes
last Wednesday.) With young athletes come expectations and, even better, hope.
But not even the most optimistic of Griz fans could have expected double-doubles
from both Marc Gasol and Darrell Arthur in their professional debuts against one
of the favorites to win this year’s Western Conference title.

Then came Friday
night at FedEx Forum. Thanks to some buzzer-beating trickery from Rudy Gay,
Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley received the sweetest treat he’s enjoyed in at
least two years. Down 10 points in the fourth quarter against an Orlando team
bound for the playoffs, the Grizzlies — vintage 2006-08 — would have been dead
and buried. But not on Halloween night, 2008. At the very least, the 16,000 fans
who bought tickets to meet the likes of O.J. Mayo and Arthur are more inclined
to do so again. And as for the team, let it be engraved in bronze that Rudy Gay
is officially The Big Bear in these parts. (When Gay had an off night Saturday
in Chicago, another old friend – Bulls rookie Derrick Rose — stole the spotlight
and helped his team pull away in the final quarter.)

When the Grizzlies
arrived in Memphis for the 2001-02 season, there was excitement out of sheer
novelty. But what made the team interesting that year were a couple of kids —
Pau Gasol and Shane Battier — who managed to push aging vets like Nick Anderson,
Grant Long, and Isaac Austin further down the bench. Those two rookies would
later play central roles for three playoff teams. Here seven years later,
there’s another rookie Gasol in the mix, not to mention a first-year player
(Arthur) who may grow into the same defensive presence Battier was for five
years. Add these fairly unknown variables — bursting with potential, based on
their first weekend as professionals — to the team’s core of Gay, Mayo, and Mike
Conley and this Grizzly squad becomes that much more, well, interesting than the
inaugural Memphis team.

Beyond the
starting lineup, these Grizzlies have what’s come to be called “energy players”
coming off the bench. Third-year pro Kyle Lowry is a push-the-pace point guard
who won’t allow opposing second units to take a breather when Conley sits. And
Hakim Warrick may be second only to Gay when it comes to pure athleticism at
either end of the floor. It’s a team that is sure to struggle for stretches of
the season (the upcoming four-game trip out west may be one). But it’s also a
team that appears to be energized by an us-against-the-world cohesiveness.
Nothing bland — nothing familiar, really — about the 2008-09 Grizzlies squad.

You just have to
wonder if the expectations — heightened after the sizzling win in the home
opener — come with patience. Will these Grizzlies — including second-year coach
Marc Iavaroni — get three years of support as they aim for playoff contention?
Patience and youth, we all know, make strange bedfellows.

I missed one of the best
sports weekends of the year in Memphis — a Carl Edwards win at Memphis
Motorsports Park and a Tiger football victory over archrival Southern Miss at
the Liberty Bowl — but I have a decent excuse. I made a 400-mile pilgrimage to
Neyland Stadium in Knoxville for my first Tennessee-Alabama gridiron clash.
There are football teams and football programs. Then there’s football culture. A
few observations from my birthplace:

Among interstate rivalries in college
football, the only series remotely close to Tennessee-Alabama are Michigan-Ohio
State and Texas-Oklahoma. The only program with more bowl appearances than
Tennessee’s 47 is, you guessed it, Alabama with 55. In the now 76-year history
of the greatest conference in the sport, the programs with the most wins in the
SEC (each with more than 300) are, yep, Alabama and Tennessee. I was raised by
UT grads who didn’t adhere all that much to the tailgating life on fall
Saturdays, and we moved so much that Knoxville has been more of a memory to me
than a hometown. But my parents always emphasized that if I were to watch a
single football game each year, it needs to be UT-Bama. Last Saturday, I
fulfilled that lifetime obligation

About three hours before kickoff, I ran into
Condredge Holloway outside the Tennessee football hall of fame museum. Now an
administrator with the UT athletics department, Holloway starred for the Vols
between 1972 and 1974, and was the first black quarterback in the SEC. When I
asked him what kind of chances the home team had against the number-two ranked
Crimson Tide, Holloway said, “They’re going to have to take it; we’re not going
to give it to them. And that’s the great thing about youth: these kids believe
that.” Holloway faced Alabama three times in his career, with the Tide among the
nation’s top four all three occasions. He never won. Saturday’s 29-9 Alabama win
had to look all too familiar

Shortly before kickoff, I saw a little girl —
no older than 5 — on an entry ramp, twenty feet above a lot filled with
tailgaters. Wearing an orange number-27 jersey (for all of you Al Wilson fans)
the child — at the top of her lungs — led chants of “Go, Big Orange! Go, Big
Orange!” and “Boo, Alabama! Boo, Alabama!” Somewhat creepy, I saw no adult
within 20 feet of her. Should you doubt the permanence or cross-generational
strength of the south’s greatest football rivalry, I’ll remind you of this
little girl. And I’ll be wondering just what kind of scholarship she’ll pursue

Tennessee held a pregame ceremony to
celebrate the 10th anniversary of its 1998 national championship team (the first
winner, by the way, of a “BCS” title). Among the dozens of celebrants on the
field were familiar faces in Big Orange country like Tee Martin, Peerless Price,
and the aforementioned Wilson. But on this night, the ceremony did an ironic
disfavor to UT coach Phillip Fulmer, as it served to merely contrast how far the
program has fallen in but a decade. Even with three appearances in the SEC
championship game (though no wins) since ’98, the program comes across as
several strides behind Florida, LSU, Georgia, and of course, Alabama

With a healthy Arkelon Hall,
the University of Memphis has more talent at the offensive skill positions than
does Tennessee. (And having scored 36 points with Hall on the sideline last
Saturday night, the qualifier may not be necessary.) Considering the enormous
recruiting advantages Fulmer has over Tommy West and his staff, this is a
serious matter for the Volunteer program. Don’t be surprised if UT starts
looking at junior-college programs for a quick fix or two at the glamour spots.

On the subject of Fulmer’s job status, I was
asked by an orange-clad fan (presumably a student) as we were leaving the
stadium who might be Tennessee’s coach next season. When I suggested that I may
just get in line to apply, the gentleman responded, “But why not me? I’m
younger!” The entire drive home, I’ve been trying to figure out where that came
from. Smarter? Okay. Better looking? Fine. But younger?? Next time I head to
Neyland Stadium, I’m taking my walking stick

The best part of the trip were the hours I
got to spend with an old friend I don’t see nearly enough. A proud alum from
Murfreesboro, he literally got sick 12 years ago when he witnessed the Tigers’
epic upset of Peyton Manning’s Vols on what he was sure was a casual visit to
the Bluff City. Memories like these — yes, even the gut-wrenching ones — are
what make college football the institution it has been and will always be.
Friendships can grow distant as jobs and family steer us through one chapter of
life after another. But on fall Saturdays — especially here in the “American
south” as my dad liked to describe it — we have an easy excuse to catch up, to
drive more miles than gas prices say we should, and to endure the barbs (and
cheers) of those who choose different colors than ours. College football games —
and seasons — begin and end, as they must. But the friendships they solidify
will last beyond our lifetimes

Rocky Top. (And okay, just
this once: Roll Tide.)

National Baseball
Day, a still-to-be-declared official holiday, has never been needed more.

With the World
Series opening this week, millions of fans — old and older — will enjoy what
remains the most fabled, historic sporting event in America. Over the course of
four to seven games, the Philadelphia Phillies or the Tampa Bay Rays will become
the 104th world champion and cement themselves in the memory banks of all who
watched from their living rooms, dens, or bar stools. The only trouble is, you
won’t find many children with any recollection of the 2008 World Series,
whatsoever.

My 9-year-old
daughter Sofia has played baseball (now softball) for four years already, and
she’s attended more than 70 games at AutoZone Park, almost all of them Sunday
matinees, under the sunshine, when the game was intended to be played. But my
4th-grade daughter — who has a book report about Stan Musial to her credit, and
a photograph with Stubby Clapp — has yet to see the 7th-inning stretch of a
World Series game. And that is a modern American atrocity.

There was a time,
believe it or not, when American children missed World Series games because they
were in school — during the daytime — when the contests were played. But at
least on weekends until 1983, kids might have a chance to cheer the sight or
sound of DiMaggio, Koufax, Gibson, or Rose playing baseball on its biggest stage
for the kind of acclaim that turns human beings into super heroes. But no more.
For fully a quarter century now, World Series games have begun long after the
sun has set on the east coast. Games end well after midnight far too frequently,
with responsible parents having tucked their children into bed so they’ll have
plenty of energy to read about the results the next morning.

National Baseball
Day would change this. On the Wednesday when Game 1 of the Series is scheduled
to be played, government offices and — most importantly — schools would close.
The game would start at 3 pm eastern time, and every child in America would have
the option of watching nine innings (if the gods are watching, more) of World
Series baseball.

Television
executives continue to take their eye off the ball of ad revenue with this
venture. With ratings having sagged for a decade, National Baseball Day would be
Super Bowl Sunday in October, and while adults will continue to fall for one
beer sale after another, the audience for video games, soft drinks, and potato
chips will double for an afternoon World Series game. Best of all — pay
attention, Commissioner Bud Selig — baseball will gain new fans, many of them
lining up in a few short years to buy that precious beer being hocked.

And what if you
don’t call yourself a baseball fan? No obligation to watch at all. Take this
blessed break — midway between Labor Day and Thanksgiving — to enjoy something
you haven’t in a while. Particularly if you’re a parent, do something with your
sons and daughters you haven’t been able to squeeze in over what have become
all-too-busy family weekends. That bike ride around the neighborhood you’ve
promised. Flying a kite near the lake. When’s the last time you sat down and
“played pretend” with your kids? Enjoy the day however you choose. Just remember
it was baseball — our national pastime, still — that got you the bonus time.

In a recent
episode of “Baseball’s Golden Age” on Fox Sports, veteran broadcaster Bob Costas
reflected on the day in 1963 when his 6th-grade teacher brought a television set
to school so Costas and his classmates could watch Game 1 of the World Series
between Whitey Ford’s New York Yankees and Sandy Koufax’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
Said Costas: “I don’t remember the lesson of the day before, or the lesson of
the day after. But I’ll remember THAT day as long as I live.” It’s time America
did for its children what that teacher did for Costas.

Friday night at
the Liberty Bowl, University of Memphis quarterback Arkelon Hall awoke memories
of the “triple threat” hero of college football days gone by. Opposing the
Louisville Cardinals in front of 40,248 fans and a national television audience,
Hall passed for two touchdowns, ran for a third, and actually caught a fourth
(courtesy of wideout Maurice Jones, who took a handoff from Hall on an apparent
end-around, only to sling the ball back across the field and into the end zone).
Alas, it was the fifth touchdown Hall was responsible for — a fumble recovered
by the Cardinals’ Johnny Patrick and returned 21 yards to paydirt — that made
the difference in Louisville’s 35-28 victory.

Even with Hall’s
heroics, this showdown between arch rivals was shaped more by the shortcomings
of the Tigers’ special teams. Immediately following that touchdown reception by
Hall – which gave Memphis a 14-7 lead midway through the second quarter —
Louisville’s Trent Guy took the kickoff 95 yards for a deflating equalizer. And
in the waning seconds of the first half, down 21-14, the home team lined up for
a 37-yard field-goal attempt, only to see the kick blocked — by the supremely
opportunistic Patrick — and returned 60 yards for a touchdown by Brandon Heath.

“We are not gonna
beat a good team playing special teams like that,” said Memphis coach Tommy West
after the game. “Offensively and defensively, I don’t know if I’ve ever been
more proud of a football team, because we played hard tonight. Outside our
special teams — which didn’t show up at all — we dominated the game. I
challenged them to step up. I told them it was going to be a grown man’s game —
and it was — but our special teams didn’t show up. There’s no way to sugarcoat
it, and we have to find a way to correct that. We have four or five guys who
this game was too big for.”

It’s hard to argue
with West’s take. Memphis outgained Louisville 481 yards to 299. The Tigers
gained 27 first downs to the Cardinals’ 13, held the ball seven minutes longer
and were penalized 19 fewer yards. If anything, the Memphis coaching staff
shifted too heavily to Hall’s hot passing hand, as the Tigers threw the ball 56
times compared with only 30 rushing attempts. Which brings up this season’s
chicken-or-egg statistic.

Seven games into
the 2008 campaign, when the Memphis Tigers pass more than they run, they lose
(to Ole Miss, Rice, Marshall, and Louisville). When they run more than they
pass, they win (over Nicholls State, Arkansas State, and UAB). Whether or not
this is a game-changing strategic decision by West or a trend built on the score
of Tiger games — teams generally throw more when trailing — is worth a debate.
But having reeled off three straight 100-yard games (all Tiger wins), Curtis
Steele averaged 5.0 yards a carry Friday night, but only got the ball 16 times.
There were third-and-short plays in which Memphis lined up with five receivers,
Hall alone in the backfield. (One of these was the Jones-to-Hall touchdown
pass.) On fourth-and-one at the Louisville two in the first quarter, Steele got
the ball on a direct snap, but not till Hall had turned to the official to fake
that he was calling timeout. (The Tigers converted and Hall scored on the next
play.) Trickery seemed to be emphasized Friday night. Perhaps it was the bright
lights of the ESPN cameras.

“That’s what I’ve
thought this team can be,” said West, “but you can’t make the errors that we
made.”

The Tigers played
most of the game without star defensive tackle Clinton McDonald — he of seven
sacks over the last three games — who left the game in the second quarter with
an injury to his left foot. Linebacker Greg Jackson and safety Alton Starr (nine
solo tackles and five assists) led the Memphis defense in McDonald’s absence.

The Tigers remain
three wins shy of the six necessary for bowl eligibility, with five to play.
After traveling to East Carolina next Saturday, three of the season’s final four
contests will be played at the Liberty Bowl with the fourth at Conference USA
cellar dweller SMU. Plenty to play for, but now with what would have been the
biggest win of the season deep-sixed by two or three game-turning plays with a
kicker on the field.

“You know, I’ve
won games that I haven’t been happy with,” said West. “I really am proud of the
way our offense and defense played. I have to find a way to get our special
teams better. We’ll bounce back. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

This Friday night
at the Liberty Bowl, we’ll have a rarity: a
stop-what-you’re-doing-and-pay-attention University of Memphis football game.

It’s a matchup
that makes memories. Memphis Tigers vs. Louisville Cardinals. Put those words on
a stadium scoreboard or television screen and a legion of Mid-South sports fans
will stop what they’re doing long enough to make another palm-sweating deposit
into their collective memory bank. And the sport doesn’t matter. You get the
impression, after living in these parts a few years, that a televised
thumb-wrestling showdown between the Tigers and Cardinals would trump the latest
offering on ESPN 2.

The sad truth,
though, is that these two rivals haven’t met on the gridiron or basketball court
in more than three years, not since the epic 2005 Conference USA basketball
championship, when Darius Washington collapsed at the free-throw line having
missed a pair of foul shots that would have given his Tigers a berth in the NCAA
tournament. Not to be forgotten, though, is the last football game between
Memphis and Louisville. Played merely four months before that basketball tilt,
the Tiger-Cardinal game on November 4, 2004, remains the best Memphis football
game of the decade. Oh heck, let’s say it: the best Memphis football game of the
century.

Played on a
Thursday night in front of a national-television audience, Memphis and
Louisville combined for 105 points and — grab your seat — nine lead changes. The
teams were led on offense by players who would share C-USA’s Offensive Player of
the Year honors. Memphis tailback DeAngelo Williams carried the ball 26 times
for 200 yards and scored on a 31-yard jaunt that gave the home team a 10-point
lead early in the second quarter. Louisville quarterback Stefan LeFors passed
for 321 yards and three touchdowns with nary an interception. Each team had a
rusher and receiver surpass 100 yards. Memphis won the total-offense battle, 603
yards (you read that correctly) to 599, but Louisville, alas, had the ball at
game’s end, LeFors converting a two-point conversion with 37 seconds on the
clock to give the bad guys a 56-49 win.

A year later,
Louisville joined the Big East Conference, and there went a football rivalry
that had seen 38 games in 44 years. This Friday night at the Liberty Bowl, that
rivalry is reborn.

The Tigers will
take the field looking to extend a winning streak to four games for the first
time since 2003, when the fourth game in a five-game run happened to be a 37-7
drubbing of Louisville. The Memphis offense — which looked rather pass-happy
when the season opened — has rediscovered the running game, with Curtis Steele
having romped for more than 100 yards in each of the last three victories. Most
promising of all, the Tigers (even with rookie quarterback Arkelon Hall) don’t
appear intimidated by deficits, having hung tough at home against Arkansas State
after falling behind, then erasing a 10-point UAB lead in Birmingham.

And what of the
Cardinals? They enter the game 2-2, having lost to another pair of
basketball-first universities (Kentucky and Connecticut), while beating
Tennessee Tech and Kansas State. Victor Anderson and Bilal Powell are every bit
the “thunder and lightning” tandem at tailback the Tigers would like to consider
Steele and Charlie Jones. Having given up 220 yards on the ground to UAB,
Memphis will have to close some gaps to keep the Cardinal offense off the field.

Four years is too
long between Tiger-Cardinal clashes. Each program would benefit from gatherings
more frequent than presidential elections or Olympiads. But if Memphis and
Louisville fans are going to be forced to quell the fiery emotions these two
combatants tend to elicit, they’d do well to heed the wisdom of that ancient
Roman sports fan, Ovid: “Bear patiently with a rival.”

University of
Memphis football coach Tommy West was barely in his seat for his postgame
comments last Saturday when he burst forth with a summary of how his Tigers beat
Arkansas State, 29-17, at the Liberty Bowl. Said West, “[Our defense] came out
for the second half, and listen to this: punt, punt, punt, punt, turnover,
turnover, punt, out on downs. And that against an offense that’s been playing
pretty dang good.” Led by four sacks from senior defensive tackle Clinton
McDonald — and not incidentally, 203 rushing yards from junior tailback Curtis
Steele — Memphis ended a two-game losing streak to the newly christened Red
Wolves with their second straight win. And it could be a corner turned for the
2008 season, as the Tigers pulled away in the fourth quarter of a game that had
four lead changes. Three factors — yet to be played out — will determine if this
was, in fact, a big win, or merely a distracting sign of life for a struggling
program.

• The Tigers beat
a (seemingly) good team. The days of considering ASU a gimme on the schedule are
over. The Red Wolves opened their season by winning at Texas A & M, then scored
83 points (no typo) in their home opener against Texas Southern (and not their
basketball team). They lost by a field goal to perennial C-USA contender
Southern Miss, then whipped MTSU, 31-14. West described ASU quarterback Corey
Leonard as being as “good as we’ve seen this year.” The Red Wolves entered
Saturday’s game with two running backs already over 350 yards for the season. If
Arkansas State proves to be the class of the Sun Belt Conference, the Tigers may
look back on September 27th as being a highlight of this campaign.

• Three weeks,
three rivals. The Tigers next travel to Birmingham for a Thursday-night tilt
with a very beatable UAB team. Then they host ancient rival Louisville on
Friday, October 10th, in what would be the biggest home game of the season
regardless of what’s at stake for either squad. (The Cardinals will enter the
game 2-2, having lost last weekend to Connecticut.) Like it or not — and
SEC-centric Mid-South fans may not — Tiger football can claim four chief
rivalries, and three of them are across the field over this single three-week
stretch. (Memphis won’t face Southern Miss until October 25th.) If the Tigers
can run the table against the Red Wolves, Blazers, and Cardinals, they’ll not
only find themselves with a record of 4-3, but with a renewed sense of the
competitive spirit that fuels the college football industry. A loss to Marshall
fades in the memory bank when that bronzed rack of ribs is lifted after a
victory over UAB. And you think knocking off a Louisville team now living the
sheltered BCS life of a Big East program won’t ease the sting of that Rice
debacle?

• Defending their
Liberty. There’s a word (actually, a few) for college football teams that can’t
win at home: pushover. In winning their second straight home game, the Tigers
have established some backbone in front of their loyal fans. Attendance last
weekend was 26,376, so you can count on at least 10,000 more seats being filled
for the prime-time affair with Louisville. Three of the Tigers’ last four games
this season will be at the Liberty Bowl, so another late-season drive for bowl
eligibility isn’t out of the question.

Of course, these
factors become moot — and fast – if Memphis can’t build on its first decent win
of 2008. And West recognizes the twin rails along which his train is riding. “We
won this game defensively,” he emphasized late Saturday afternoon. “We won with
our running game. Because we weren’t very good throwing it. We also made it hard
on their quarterback today, and he’s an outstanding player. When we needed to
make plays today, we made plays. I’m excited about the improvement we’ve made.”

Not to be ignored
from last Saturday’s coming-out party were the three field goals converted by
reserve walk-on kicker Vinny Zaccario. With Matt Reagan nursing a hip-flexor
injury, West turned to a kid his players know about as well as Tiger fans. “I
introduced him to our team [after the game],” chuckled West. “I said, ‘There’s
the guy who kicked the field goals.’ ” It wouldn’t be the first time a hidden
jewel has turned a season around.

An open letter to
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama:

Dear Mr.
President-to-be (and his graceful Runner-Up-to-be),

Before you save
the country, why not save a football program?

On behalf of all
Mid-Southerners, welcome to our neck of the woods. We know you’ll each be in top
form Friday night in Oxford, when Ole Miss students see the biggest on-campus
showdown since the Manning boys’ daddy was slinging the pigskin. Which brings me
to my reason for writing.

What better way to
wind down after your opening debate than to spend a Saturday afternoon doing
what every decent and God-fearing American does on such a fall day: watch some
football. And what better place for the next leader of the free world to enjoy
some blocking and tackling than in an arena called Liberty Bowl Memorial
Stadium? With kickoff between our Memphis Tigers and the Arkansas State Red
Wolves scheduled for 1 pm, you can be in a swing state by nightfall, knowing
you’ve done wonders for rescuing a crippled program that seems as bruised these
days as our nation’s economy. Tiger football, my presidential aspirants, is a
cause worth fighting for.

Hailing from
Arizona and Illinois — where the state universities are far more renowned for
basketball than football — I know you’ll empathize with a cause that, one year
after the next, falls under the considerable shadow of a roundball program that
makes national waves every time John Calipari appears on The Best Damn Sports
Show Period. (Okay, so the Illini reached the Rose Bowl last season. They’ve
done so twice in 40 years and lost by a combined score of 94-26.) Tiger
football, you see, embodies all that each of you have campaigned for: the
underdog, the fighter, the team given no chance, a group of young men audacious
enough to hope for victory against the odds, and a program left in the
conference equivalent of a POW camp (but with a name I know you both applaud:
Conference USA). How does this team stand up against the overwhelming strength
of SEC programs east, west, north, and south? Do your business in Oxford (as the
Tigers attempted in their season opener), then take the short drive north to
find out.

You see, with no
SEC team on the home schedule, this is the Tigers’ one chance to fill the
cavernous Liberty Bowl (capacity: 65,000). A team wearing blue (for you, Senator
Obama) and a team wearing red (for you, Senator McCain). Rest assured, Mr.
McCain, we won’t tell anyone if you sit on the side supporting a team from
Arkansas.

Oh, you’ll each
get your chance to earn some votes on November 4th. Instead of the Mighty Sound
of the South taking the field at halftime, you’ll each get ten minutes to share
with your audience the most critical components of your campaign. Coin flip (if
we can find one) to see who speaks first. Bonus points to the candidate who
draws the best parallel between fixing a country and fixing a college football
team looking for its first decent win of the season.

Please make sure
you bring your running mates with you to the game. Based on their roots, Joe
Biden and Sarah Palin are probably the only two adults who will be thoroughly
impressed by the Memphis-ASU showdown. I don’t care how many lower-division
championships the University of Delaware has won, the Tigers would beat the snot
out of any team that calls itself the Blue Hens. As for Ms. Palin’s perspective,
the average attendance at the Liberty Bowl last season (29,670) is almost five
times the population of Wasilla, Alaska. She’ll think she’s landed in the Big
House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And the Tiger has yet to be born that needs any
lipstick.

The economy’s in
the toilet. Wars on more fronts than we can count. Coasts ravaged by hurricanes.
Any presidential problem-solver, though, needs a bit of training. I present to
you, Number 44: University of Memphis football.

See you at the
game!

If character is
doing the right thing when nobody’s watching, pride must be playing college
football with very little to gain. Having seen their high hopes of a first
Conference USA championship go up in smoke in a 17-16 defeat at Marshall last
weekend, the Memphis Tigers are now staring at nine games and a steep climb to
respectability. With two conference losses already and the program’s first 0-3
start in a decade, silver linings are hard to come by. But we’ll give it a shot.

For the first time
this season, Memphis held its opponent under 40 points. But considering the
Thundering Herd still amassed more than 400 yards of total offense, this was
more a reflection of Marshall’s offensive ineptitude than it was any solidifying
of the Tiger D. On the offensive side of the ball, the U of M passing attack is
proving to be as dangerous as advertised. Quarterback Arkelon Hall threw for 364
yards a week after compiling 373 against Rice. Junior Carlos Singleton was on
the receiving end of 11 passes, good for 158 yards. But despite all the aerial
movement, Memphis reached the end zone but once (on a four-yard pass from backup
quarterback Will Hudgens to Earnest Williams).

More silver
linings? The Tigers held the ball slightly longer than did Marshall. They
committed fewer penalties and had ten more first downs (26 to 16) than did their
opponent. All of which makes coach Tommy West’s job that much more difficult in
identifying how quickly the 2008 season turned sour, and how he and his staff
might find some sweetener for the two-plus months of season that remains.

Next up Saturday
night at the Liberty Bowl is the Tigers’ annual schedule-filler against Football
Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) competition. Instead of
Chattanooga or Tennessee Tech, Nicholls State comes to town in what will be the
Colonels’ season opener, their first two games having been postponed by
Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The closest thing to a cream puff Memphis will see
this fall, Nicholls State may be salve to a wounded collective psyche on the
Tiger side of the field. If ever West has needed a week to experiment with his
depth chart and make some in-game alterations, this will be the one. But the
home crowd — will there be as many as 30,000 to see if the Tigers can scratch
the win column? — had better not count any chickens with these Colonels in town.
A year ago, this FCS team beat the Rice Owls.

Wins are
accumulated one at a time, of course. Schedule-gazing and dreaming of brighter
lights are afterthoughts for the 2008 Tigers. Now, it’s simply a matter of
pride.

• Considering how
high Memphis Tiger basketball has risen in the nation’s Q ratings, the upcoming
home schedule has to be considered a disappointment. After a 2007-08 season that
welcomed the likes of Arizona, Georgetown, Tennessee, and Gonzaga to FedExForum,
the upcoming season’s nonconference home highlights will be Massachusetts
(November 17th), Syracuse (December 20th), and Cincinnati (December 29th). While
the Tigers will face the Vols and Zags again on the road, Lamar is the only
nonconference opponent visiting FEF after New Year’s Day. And while UMass will
carry sentimental value — as Calipari’s former stomping grounds, now under the
guidance of longtime Memphis assistant Derek Kellogg — the Tigers will be
considerable favorites, just as they will against the Orange and Bearcats.
You’ll likely witness the most dramatic moments of the upcoming season in your
living room.

• Last week, Ryan
Ludwick became the second St. Louis Cardinal to drive in 100 runs a year after
playing for the Memphis Redbirds. (The first was none other than Albert Pujols.)
The 30-year-old outfielder remains among the best baseball stories of 2008.
Entering the 2007 season, Ludwick had played in 104 big-league games (with a
total of 44 RBIs) and 520 minor-league contests over his eight-year professional
career. He lit up Pacific Coast League pitching last year, hitting .340 with 36
RBIs in only 29 games for Memphis. Promoted to St. Louis in May ’07, Ludwick hit
14 homers and drove in 52 runs as a reserve for the Cardinals. After making his
first All-Star appearance this past July, Ludwick will receive a few MVP votes
at season’s end. No player on the planet will have earned them more.

The University of Memphis has been playing football since
1912, and the program has had its share of struggles, suiting up plenty of teams
that were, if not down right sorry, quite forgettable. But not since 1924 had
the Tigers given up more than 40 points in each of their first two games.
(Hendrix College and Arkansas College outscored Zach Curlin’s boys by a combined
score of 100-0 a few weeks before President Calvin Coolidge was re-elected.)
Then came the start of the 2008 season: Ole Miss 41, Memphis 24 and Rice 42,
Memphis 35.

While the opening loss at Oxford may have been
disappointing to head coach Tommy West, his team, and the growing legion of
Tiger fans who’ve come to embrace this era of Memphis football, the late-game
collapse against Rice Saturday at the Liberty Bowl carried the kind of
heartbreak that can shape a season. Having emphasized the character of his
recruits for eight years now, West will see if the current team is staggered by
the loss to an Owl squad it should have beaten, or inspired by what could have
been.

The manner by which an apparent win was given away — Rice
scored three touchdowns in the last seven minutes, including a game-winning
69-yard interception return — was eerily similar to gut-wrenching home losses to
Cincinnati in 2002 (a season finale that cost Memphis a winning season and bowl
game) and to Arkansas State in 2006 (a crusher followed by five consecutive
losses). Behind the arm of rookie quarterback Arkelon Hall — his 373 yards
passing against Rice is the fourth highest single-game total in Memphis history
— the Tigers took a 35-20 lead over a Rice team that had lit up SMU with 56
points in their opener a week earlier. Alas, it’s the pass intercepted by Chris
Jammer and returned for Rice’s final touchdown that will stand out from Hall’s
first performance at the Liberty Bowl.

This was a bigger game, in some respects, than the more
ballyhooed opener at Ole Miss. With an expressed goal of contending for the
Conference USA championship, the Tigers need to beat the likes of Rice (picked
by league coaches to finish fourth in C-USA’s West Division). Hall matched
Rice’s all-conference quarterback Chase Clement pass for pass (Clement wound up
with 318 yards but two picks of his own), and the Tigers held all-conference
wideout Jarett Dillard to a fairly pedestrian eight receptions for 66 yards. But
clamping down on Dillard merely opened gaps in the Tiger defense for Owl tight
end James Casey, whose 11 catches were good for an astonishing 208 yards (which
don’t even include the game-tying two-point conversion with under two minutes to
play).

Two of the three most important stat lines in football are
first downs and penalties. The team that wins these categories typically wins a
game. Rice had 24 first downs to the Tigers’ 22 and the Owls were penalized but
three times for 20 yards, while Memphis had six infractions that cost them 48
yards. (In the third critical area — turnovers — each team had two.) A week
earlier, Memphis had twice the penalties (eight) of their opponent, and a pair
of turnovers (to none for Ole Miss) offset the first-down advantage Memphis held
(28 to 19). It’s a cliche, of course, but the honest truth: when Memphis
protects the football and avoids penalties, the Tigers will start winning games.

Next up for the Tigers is a trip to Huntington, West
Virginia, for a tilt with Marshall. The Thundering Herd was manhandled by
Wisconsin last weekend, but pounded Illinois State in its opener. The game is
now a must-win for the U of M, as the 2008 schedule gets tougher with every 50
points scored by Louisville and every major upset pulled off by East Carolina.
(Can the Pirates be the 2008 BCS-busters we saw in Boise State two years ago and
Hawaii in 2007?) For a winning season, the Tigers are going to have to find a
three-game winning streak (minimum) on that schedule. With Marshall followed by
Nicholls State and Arkansas State at home, then a road game against a beatable
UAB team, Memphis may well determine how high the bar for this season can be
raised before the nationally televised showdown with the Cardinals on October
10th. The first aim next weekend, you can be certain, is to keep the Herd under
40 points.