Memphis Roar

Murphy Athletic Complex on the South Campus

With today’s firing of Tommy West, we are bumping this article back up to the top for those that missed it. Many of the sentiments expressed by West in today’s press conference are laid out in our look at the current location of the University of Memphis football facilities.

What in world is going on? 1-4 versus the Sunbelt conference in their last 5 games? At least Rip Scherer could beat Arkansas State.  There is a problem when you are getting beat on the road and at home by teams you are superior to in both money and facilities.

We can evaluate talent levels and budgets all we want, but ultimately it comes down to the simple question; is there any reason why Memphis should lose to Arkansas State by blowing a huge lead and Middle Tennessee the same season.  Memphis’ football budget is twice either of those two schools.  For the record Memphis’ total athletic budget exceeds $34 million with football having about half of that, while ASU’s total athletic budge is short of $9 million.  This is entirely unacceptable.  In fact, Memphis’ only win over a Sunbelt school since DeAngelo Williams left was last season’s victory over ASU at home; a game in which Vegas said we would lose (ASU was a 3 point favorite).

Why would teams with inferior budgets, less history and less prestige be continually beating you?  When this happens you have to evaluate every part of the program.  The main problem with evaluation is that sometimes, you can really get caught up in the details.  You know, the whole “you miss the forest for the trees” sort of thing. So ask yourself, “What about the Tigers’ program is different from those other schools?”  If you go look at the facilities, they’re not bad at all.  In fact they’re pretty impressive in comparison.   Could it be that it’s not the quality of the facilities, but the location?

Nobody in their right mind is going to say that Johnny “Red” Floyd stadium (MTSU’s stadium) is better than the Liberty Bowl, nor will they say that the facilities they have are superior because the fact is they are not.  They will say that they can walk to practice from the dorm or class.  They will tell you that they can take their recruits to the stadium and the dorms without having to pile everyone into a bus.

Engineers learn quickly to follow in the footsteps of those ahead of you.  Call it reverse engineering or copying. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel, is there?  Why is it that all these other schools have their football faciilties in the middle of their campuses?  Sure, it would’ve been cheaper for Middle Tennessee to put their football stadium on some spot on the outskirts of Murfreesboro.  Instead, they used valuable space for football and basketball.  How about Vanderbilt? Their stadium sits on some of the most valuable properity in the city of Nashville.  You know Vandy could easily play their games at LP Field, but elected to stay on campus. So, what makes this system work so well?

Quick, everyone name the home of Memphis’ basketball team.  Anyone who answered “the FedEx Forum” would be WRONG.  While it’s true that the Forum is where they play their home games, the REAL home is the Larry O. Finch Center, which you can find on the campus map in the middle of the main campus.  I dare you to find something football related facilities on the “main” campus.  This truth makes it easy for the players to spend the whole day at the Finch minus the time they spend in class, eating or sleeping.

This gets to the real heart of the matter.  College athletes live a different life from other students.  It’s not bad, it’s just different.  Football players basically “major” in football for five months.  They spend more time at football related activities than on any other thing.   The coaches set it up this way so the kids will go to class, study, eat right, stay healthy, stay out of trouble, and keep their minds on football.  This requires a football facility that is easily accessible to the student athletes.

What is the problem with the U of M’s set up?  Well,  the main problem is the Murphy Athletic complex is on the south campus.  It’s located over 3 miles from the main campus.  It’s not like someone can easily walk from the Murphy Athletic Complex to class and back.  If you drive around the south campus, you will realize that it is basically a large athletic complex.  There are no classes, dorms (there are apartments), or cafeterias.  If the players could stay here all day, it would be fine. Unfortunately, they have to eat, sleep, and go to those pesky classes that student-athletes have to attend.  This set up is so different from everyone else that we compete against except one school, Tulane.  The message is that this setup is not too successful.  A person close to the Athletic Director’s office told me that “this is not the ideal situation, but it’s not really feasible to do it another way right now”.

Now, this is not to say that you have to give the University of Memphis an on-campus stadium to make it work, but ask yourself this; would Memphis even think about starting a school hospital without first finding it a home on campus?  A place to conduct research, treat patients, hold classes and teach its students what they need to know to be successful in the medical profession?  The obvious answer is no.  So why is the university and its administration surprised that the football team is not successful when there is no REAL place to teach the football team?

Let us be honest, football has taken a back seat to basketball at Memphis, but the symbolism could not be any more unmistakable.  The football program relegated to the far side of the university on the “other” campus, while the basketball program is front and center.  Nobody is even pretending what has always been understood to be fact.   The sad part is that the proposed expansions of the Murphy Center will not solve this problem.  When asked about this, again the same person close to the AD’s office acknowledged that the idea of spending a lot of additional funds on the Murphy Complex “might be counter-productive to football”.  So why do it?  Save the money and do it right.  This is really what the on-campus stadium group is arguing.  Give the football team a real footprint at the university, on the main campus.  Give it a fighting chance.  It would not require a $150 million dollar on-campus stadium to give football a home, but you do need space.  You do have to give the team a spot close to the dorms and classrooms to be a part of university.

As of today, an on campus stadium is a non-starter.  As our source close to the situation stated, “The reality of football is that it’s not self sustaining, so additional funding will have to come from outside sources.”  The problem with this is that most of the new ambassadors were brought in due to the success of basketball. At this point, it appears that an on-campus stadium is not going to happen no matter how many studies are commissioned and say it’s feasible.  What is feasible would be to give football what it must have, a place to call home.  It’s time to bring football in from outskirts and back into the main stream, or at least on the main campus.  Bring it back and make it a part of the university.  Right now it’s a fractured mess with dorms here, classes there, practice somewhere else and the games at another location.  This is allowing other schools with smaller budgets and inferior facilities to catch up quick. This is the problem. Not necessarily through an on-campus stadium, but bring Tiger football home.