Is the Honeymoon Over?

he defense forced seven turnovers. It gave up only one touchdown and a pair of 50-yard-plus field goals. The defense played well enough to win, but for the University of Memphis football program it was dèjá vu. Another close game in which the defense and special teams do their job, but the offense disappears. Mississippi State senior Brian Hazelwood nailed a career-long 53-yard field goal on the last play of the game as MSU came from behind to beat Memphis 13-10 Saturday in Starkville.

This was supposed to be the new-look Tigers: a team with speed, experience, and depth at wide receiver, a team capable of moving the football and scoring points. But quarterback Bernard Oden completed only 6 of 17 passes for 102 yards against State. Neither senior Chancy Carr nor junior Richie Floyd -- the team's most experienced receivers -- caught a pass against MSU. Five passes were dropped as the Memphis offense sputtered most of the day.

And Monday, on his radio call-in show, Rip Scherer faced the heaviest barrage of criticism in his three seasons here. Callers sounded a persistent theme: Why was the Memphis offense so conservative? How could they score only 10 points after the defense had seven takeaways? Why did Scherer continue to try to pound the ball at a larger Mississippi State team which had stood firm against the run all day?

To his credit, Scherer handled the critical calls without losing his cool. It was a grim coach who earlier had faced reporters at his weekly press luncheon at The Public Eye. Declaring that he was tired of talking about improvements in his offense, Scherer said: "Until we do it, it really doesn't make much sense to continue to talk about it."

He maintained that posture throughout his radio show as well.

After scoring on a 65-yard touchdown pass from Bernard Oden to sophomore running back P.T. Jones on its first offensive series, Memphis never again threw the ball deep. Scherer says they threw deep early to try to back the Bulldogs off the line of scrimmage and that two long pass plays were thwarted later in the game when Oden was flushed out of the pocket. Memphis ran the ball 37 times against Mississippi State for a paltry 102 yards, exactly the same yardage as 17 pass attempts provided.

Tailback Teofilo Riley, a sophomore who finished last season as the number-one tailback, didn't get into the game until the fourth quarter. He promptly ran for 31 yards on just five carries. Does Scherer wish he had brought Riley in earlier? "Hindsight is always 20-20," he answers. "He had fresh legs when there were a lot of tired legs out there."

Riley was unproductive in spring practice and then came into preseason out of shape, according to the coach. This week Riley will get more work at tailback, a position he now shares with Jones and true freshman Fred Powell, who rushed for 58 yards on 13 carries and looked promising against MSU.

Scherer must also have some concerns with his defense, which bent but didn't break at Starkville. The Bulldogs pounded the young Tiger defense for 260 yards on the ground, and consistently won the battle in the trenches. Memphis also tackled poorly, with several missed tackles leading to big rushing gains for MSU.

"It's been a bone of contention all preseason," Scherer says of the missed tackles. "We didn't tackle as well as we should have. Sometimes that's the downside of being a little faster; you're out of control a little bit more. We've got to be in better shape to make plays."

Memphis now turns its attention to the home opener Saturday against UAB. Last year was the Blazers' first in Division-I football, but with former Vandy head coach Watson Brown at the helm and a fertile football state to recruit in, UAB has progressed quickly. The Blazers lost their season opener 24-0 last Thursday at Kansas.

Look for Memphis to get back to basics on offense before the UAB game. "We probably outsmarted ourselves a little bit, tried to do too much, tried to get a little too fancy," Scherer said following the MSU game.

Suddenly, a visit from upstart UAB is a huge game for Scherer's program. Tiger fans are accustomed to losing to SEC teams. A loss to the Blazers, though, would be a major setback for the program.