Tommy West got his first taste of what his team will look like this season, and it was bitter.
Thursday afternoon, The University of Memphis football team held its first spring scrimmage, and West was critical of the many problems his team was having, especially on offense.
“It was pretty much pathetic on offense,” West said. “For some reason we came out here and acted like we were pretty good on offense, and we’re not worth a ... I’ll just leave it at that.”
West said nobody on offense stepped up and showed leadership like he had hoped.
“Offensively I just didn’t see a leader out there,” West said. “I’m not looking at anyone in particular, but I’d like to see somebody try to step in there and rally the troops when it doesn’t go good, and I didn’t see that today.”
One positive of a scrimmage is when one side of the ball is playing really badly it usually means the other side is playing really well.
However, Thursday the offense may have been too bad for the coaching staff to get a read on how well the defense was really playing.
“It was hard to tell, it looked like we did some things defensively, but it was hard to tell because the offense was so bad and gave such a poor effort,” West said. “We scored two or three touchdowns defensively, so just because I’m mad at one side doesn’t mean the other side didn’t do pretty good. (The defense) moved around well and made some plays.”
The success the defense had might coincide with the arrival of defensive coordinator Joe Lee Dunn, who was brought in during the off-season to try to turn around a defense that went from best in the nation to cellar-dweller in a few years.
In 1994, Memphis boasted the No. 1 defense in the nation. The defensive unit led the Tigers to its last winning season at 6-5 and held opponents to 159 points that season, an average of 14.4 a game.
Last season the Tigers gave up 327 points to the opposition, an average of 27.3 a contest.
The change in the defensive intensity is evident from the 2001 campaign.
Last year, Memphis gave up 2,365 yards rushing, 101st in the nation, compared to the 1,686 they gave up the year before.
“(With Dunn) I think there’s a confidence over there defensively. They seem to be enjoying it and come out here excited to play and they know that defense is an attitude,” West said. “I’m glad to see our defense do well, the thing I’m mad about is the lack of intensity and the overall effort offensively.”
West said he was still confident he would have things turned around soon.
“That’s what spring is for-— to find these things out,” West said. “Trust me, it’s going to come ... well get their attention pretty quickly.”
