Memphis Odds and Ends

It was one of those things...it ended up being a gorgeous day and we had a really nice crowd, with over 20,000 in the house.  It was a very good environment and absent the result, a very entertaining game.

The sad thing is that we didn't win.  I always feel like when we get people who are new and we don't win we lose them for the future.  Of course, last year we got the Indiana win and it didn't seem to help that much.

One thing that works against repeat customers is just that the gameday experience when we have a big crowd continues to be difficult and less than welcoming.  It started with the area where we were supposed to park, which had severely reduced capacity due to people parking in one space and then putting their lawn chairs in the neighboring space.  Then, there were huge lines to get people into the stadium and then up the ramp into seats.

I totally get that the ramps aren't big enough (the architects apparently never anticipated that people would actually come to sit in all those seats) but there could easily be a new gate opened in the chain link fence.

Finally, the concessions lines are just ridiculous.

Other notes...

The game featured two very marketable coaches.  There's been a lot of talk about Babers, but Justin Fuentes from Memphis is also very upwardly mobile.  He coached at TCU before Memphis and he's rebuilt that program.  I think you will see him at a P5 school sometime soon.

The officials were just bizarre, and I'm not even talking about the fact that I understand they were even getting the reviews wrong.  I just felt like there were a lot of odd calls and an unusual number of calls that needed to be reviewed.

I came up with the idea that if a ref makes a call that is overturned, he should have to sit in a kind of penalty box for like 5 plays.  That'd be cool.

BG continues to have issues with penalties, which I am not blaming on the refs.  There are special teams issues with penalties, but also on defense and even offense.  This is something you never saw with Clawson and it is making it harder for the team to win.

Finally, Memphis was clearly trying to keep the short ball away from us.  They gave up some long balls, but I kind of like the strategy.  If you can force BG into lower percentage throws and keep the short pass and run game from getting any rhythm, I do think you make it harder for us to become the offensive machine we need to be.