As a Tiger Fan, I have Felt Many Things, but Never This...

My school, the University of Memphis, played our hated in-state rivals, the (not) University of Tennessee today. Three friends, with whom I enjoyed the DeAngelo Williams years, and I went to the game and crammed ourselves into decent seats along the 20 yard line. I thought over the summer and even as the year started, that given our conference (C-USA) and schedule (two relatively easy games and excellent chances against our Conference opponents), that we might go 7-5 or even 8-4. I did not think, in any case, that we would beat (not) UT, but I hoped for a competitive game that would continue to assist our recruiting C-USA type players, eventually getting us a league title and another step toward becoming a regional power program.
Our coach, Tommy West, had shown over the last three years, a willingness to spread the field with an open passing game, balanced with a good running attack led by DeAngelo. I thought our backs this year, while not first-round NFL draft picks, were adequate to keeping the spread offense moving smoothly. I also thought that Martin Hankins, our new quarterback, played quite well, even as we lost to Ole Miss four weeks ago. Even after we collapsed last week against East Carolina (East Carolina--in retrospect), I thought we still would show up to play (not) UT and make a decent showing.
In all of the above, I was wrong--terribly, horribly wrong. I have seen Memphis lose countless games since 1980, some by abysmally lopsided scores. I have seen head coaches so afraid to lose that they punt with less than 2 minutes to go in the game rather than try a 55 yard field goal that would have just resulted in a tie (Rex Dockery, 1983--RIP). I have seen dropped passes by wide open receivers in end zones that would have won games. In a word, I have seen a lot of mediocre Tiger football since 1980 and only in the last three years have I seen measureable improvement in the program.
I have until today, that is, been embarrassed, frustrated, angry, disappointed, but never ashamed during a Memphis football season. Until today. We not only lost (41-7), but we everything we seemed to have overcome in the last three years, we rediscovered today. Coach West became the second comings of Rex "Punt" Dockery, George Halas (minus Gale Sayers) and George Allen (with an Under the Ground Gang). He called running play after running play after runing play, even in 3rd down situations and over ten yards to go. On three separate ocassions, we had (not) UT pinned inside their five yard line and couldn't keep them from scoring (yep, scoring, not just getting first downs, but driving all the way down the field and scoring!!). Our defense tried in the first half, but thanks to our inept, unimaginative, three inches and a cloud of whimpering offense, simply had nothing left for the seocnd half. I will be interested to hear if Coach West blames himself for one of the worst defeats in a school-long legacy of defeats or if he'll launch into Coach-speak about "not having had time to install his new defense" (two weeks and he's a former Defensive Coordinator?) or (not) UT having a biggger football budget or some other forms of excuses. Congratulations to all UT fans: you deserved to win and played well. As for my beloved U of M, I'm out of words.