by Dennis Freeland
oing into season number four, the pressure is on head coach Rip Scherer. He needs a winning record in 1998. Last year a young, relatively inexperienced team came close.
Co-offensive coordinator Rusty Burns says the Tigers could have
been 7-4 last year instead of 4-7. The difference was three offensive
mistakes in three different games. Thus, Burns says, the top priority
for the offense in ’98 is not to turn the ball over, not to make
mistakes. “We are going to be very conscious of where we throw
the ball, who we throw it to, and reduce the penalties,” he says.
PHOTO BY DAVID SOWELL
Evans: Blue-Gray MVP
This is, at last, Rip Scherer’s team. Only eight fifth-year seniors remain from the Chuck Stobart era. And with only 11 seniors on the roster, it surely is one of the youngest Memphis teams in history. But the team has experience (eight starters back on both sides of the ball) and depth (for the first time since Scherer arrived, the two-deep roster means something). Scherer feels comfortable with this team. “We are over the hump in trying to get everybody committed. I think everybody is in the boat with us now,” he said Saturday following the annual Blue-Gray game. “It is really important to this football team to be successful. They want to win.”
It’s easy to be optimistic in the spring, but the consensus following the Tigers’ spring football drills seems to be that this team is better. Defensively, they have a deep, talented, and super-quick defensive line with eight players able to play regularly. The defensive backfield is anchored by savvy veterans such as Mike McKenzie, Keith Cobb, and Jeremy Stewart. The only question on defense is at linebacker, where defensive coordinator Jim Pletcher is looking to replace both outside players.
“We don’t have the depth there right now that we need,” Scherer says of his outside linebackers. “Guys like Ian Williams and [Michael] Boatman need to step forward. I think [Mario] Shank and Caspor Stiles are really good players. If we were playing tomorrow, they would be the two starters, but we need at least two players to come along there. We have a couple of freshmen coming in who might help us there.”
Aside from the linebacker question, this could be the best Memphis defense in four or five years. It certainly has a chance to be the best defense in Conference USA. But defense hasn’t been the problem at the U of M. Lack of scoring punch has cost the Tigers over the last five years.
“The offense has been downtrodden for so many years, not a lot has been expected of them,” Scherer says. “We are trying to change that persona and raise the bar a little bit.”
With Gerard Arnold and true freshman Jeff “Sugar” Sanders running hard behind a line that has a little depth for the first time in six years, the Tiger offense definitely looks better. Memphis has three veteran wide receivers in Damien Dodson, Boo Blevins, and Richie Floyd, but with an inexperienced quarterback (either redshirt sophomore Kenton Evans, true sophomore Stephen Galbraith, or redshirt freshman Neil Suber) calling signals, Scherer expects to play conservatively at first.
“I would like to have the capacity to bring the quarterback along slowly. We’ve got to be able to run the ball, play good defense, and I think we have a chance with Ryan White to have an outstanding field-goal kicker,” Scherer says. “We have to be able to allow the quarterback to mature into that position. To take some pressure off of him, we have to be able to run the football.”
After rushing for more than 100 yards in the spring game and averaging close to five yards-per-carry throughout the spring, Arnold thinks the offense is starting to believe in itself. “Our confidence level is a lot higher than it was last year,” he says. “We came out today and proved that we can put points on the board. That lets us know we’re getting better.”
Scherer knows Memphis fans are expecting a winning season this year. But truthfully, next year, when a deep and talented junior class enters its final season, the Tigers could be exactly where Scherer wants them. The Tigers will be tested early. The ’98 season starts with several challenges – road games at Ole Miss and Minnesota and home games with Mississippi State and Arkansas fill four of the first five slots in the schedule. But it gets easier after that. The 1998 Tigers look capable of competing with their C-USA opponents. And for now, at least, that’s really all anyone should expect.
Birth of a Quarterback?
Kenton Evans won the MVP award Saturday. With his main competitors for the starting quarterback job out with injuries, the redshirt sophomore got a chance to shine. Scherer said after the game that Evans is the most talented of the three, but that it takes more than natural talent to play quarterback.
“You also have to be a leader, you have to be tough, you have to be someone people believe in,” he says. “If you had polled our football team before this spring, there were some skeptics among our players. But he has won a lot of guys over. That’s important. It’s not a popularity contest, but they know who competes, who fights, and who they believe in.”
Even though Evans wore a red shirt in the spring game (meaning he was not subject to defensive hits), Scherer said Evans took enough hits throughout the spring drills to prove to his coaches and teammates that it is a new, tougher quarterback wearing number 10.
Last season was hard on Evans, according to Scherer. “He was talking about transferring. People were putting in his ear that he wasn’t getting a fair shake. We were on him, I was on him, Rusty [Burns] was on him. I think he thought we didn’t like him; the world was against him,” the coach says. “The thing I tried to tell him is that much is expected of whom much is given. I expect a lot from him because he is talented and he’s smart.”
Expectations for Evans may have been too high in the beginning, Scherer says. “I think realistically he is about where he should be. Our starting quarterback, whoever it is, has a chance to be a three-year starter. Redshirt sophomore year – I would think this is about the time he should start to emerge.” n
The fourth annual TAMY Pro Classic and Pro-Am, featuring the best tennis players in Tennessee and Mississippi, will be held April 30th through May 3rd at Bellevue Tennis Center, 1310 S. Bellevue Blvd.
The tournament is the brainchild of Memphis teaching pro Stephen Lang, who is dedicated to bringing tennis to the inner city. Starting in 1993, TAMY (Tennis Association for Memphis Youth) has reached over 1,200 kids through its camps and clinics.
Last year’s tournament raised over $25,000. Lang has assembled a strong field, including the University of Tennessee and Ole Miss men’s teams, plus several players with triple-digit world rankings. This is pretty close to world-class tennis in a public-parks setting – something you don’t see very often. n – John Branston