‘Football is back in Memphis’
Giannotto: Tigers’ Friday Night Stripes spring game was a shot in the arm that “just felt right.”
Friday Night Stripes was a shot in the arm, ‘just felt right’
Todd Adams was explaining the origins of the Highland Hundred’s annual barbeque contest that went on a one-year hiatus like just about every other tradition over the past year when he offered an anecdote to put it all in perspective.
The president of Memphis football’s booster club pointed around the bend to a mobile command unit where the fire department was
administering vaccine shots, maybe 50 feet away from where judges critiqued the tenderness and scent and even the Styrofoam box presentation of mouthwatering ribs.
“It’s not like I was against getting it, or I hadn’t been not getting it,” Adams explained. “But it was right here and we were in and out in five minutes.”
Another shot in the arm, this time courtesy of a Memphis football spring game that felt more normal than any other Memphis sporting event that has taken place since the COVID-19 pandemic upended our daily lives.
The tailgating tents began to go up at around 7 a.m., and the smokers started cooking not long after that. Coach Ryan Silverfield showed up in the late morning to greet every group that showed up early for Memphis football’s long-awaited Friday Night Stripes event. Fans who didn’t go to any games last fall for the first time were back for the first time.
“I don’t know if I could go two years without it,” said season ticket holder Jim Smith.
This was more like a community experience. A masked community experience, and not the biggest possible community experience. But an experience more like we remember, with less anxiety than the pre-vaccine gatherings that didn’t seem nearly as satisfying.
There were flags and inflatables and grills and friends reconnecting over a cold one. There were children throwing the football around in the grass less than a football field away from the giant tent that serves as a federal vaccination site over at the Pipkin Building. There was a cavalry of former Memphis players lining the end zone, including Pro Football Hall of Famer Isaac Bruce, Memphis native Anthony Miller and running back Antonio Gibson.
There were sights and sounds and smells that just didn’t exist the last time Memphis played a football game at the Liberty Bowl. Just ask the Tigers what it was like this time to see the crowd emerging from the billowing smoke of their inflatable helmet outside the locker room.
“It gave you a sense of, man, we’re getting back to where we want,” Silverfield said. “It just felt right.”
“Last year we would have a handful of people in the stands and you could hear yourself talking,” cornerback Jacobi
Francis said. “Tonight, it felt a little more electric.”
“It kind of got that feel that football is back in Memphis,” wide receiver Calvin Austin III said.
Like all of society, Memphis is straddling that middle ground of hoping the worst of this pandemic has passed while being mindful that it’s not over. The next step in that process was to open the parking lots for socially distanced tailgating.
Did everyone wear their mask at all times, or stay six feet away from one another? Of course not. But nobody acted egregiously, either. With more and more vaccine shots distributed every day, this was a sneak preview for a college football season that should be a lot more like college football again.
“People are ready to get the hell out,” Adams said.
“I’m not even going to the game,” said Eddie Barrera, as he added more sauce to the chicken wings he was cooking in the parking lot. “I’m just jumping for joy that we get to do what we used to do.”
“I’m going to the game,” added Clay Holdford. “I want to see who the QBS are.”
See, even the storylines are more normal.
This represented the first extended glimpse at the four players competing to replace record-setting quarterback Brady White. None stood out in any discernible way, which jives with the evenly split rotation Silverfield says the team utilized throughout spring practice, including Friday’s spring game.
“I could see it going pretty far into training camp,” Silverfield said of the quarterback competition, although this columnist would still be shocked if anyone but Arizona transfer Grant Gunnell is under center when Memphis opens its season against Nicholls State on Sep. 4.
But this spring game was not about figuring out the next starting quarterback. It was about starting over after a year all of us would like to move on from.
What better way to start than with a barbeque contest and a shot in the arm.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto
“I don’t know if I could go two years without it (football).”
Jim Smith
Memphis football season ticket holder
“I’m not even going to the game. I’m just jumping for joy that we get to do what we used to do.”
Eddie Barrera
Memphis football fan on being able to tailgate again