“What we’re all about these days is the recruiting business.”
— University of Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson, November 9th
LSU running backs coach Larry Porter will be named the new head football coach for the U of M Sunday at a public press conference, to be held at 3:00 in the Mike Rose Theatre on campus.
- Larry Porter
The search for Tommy West’s successor came down to a pair of candidates: Porter and Washington Redskins defensive assistant Jerry Gray. If the top qualification for the new boss is recruiting, as R.C. Johnson suggested three weeks ago, the choice simply had to be Porter, the former U of M tailback. Porter has built his reputation on the hunting down and capturing of top prep talent (though Louisiana happens to be as fertile with football talent as any territory this side of Florida). Whatever skills Gray has developed in more than a decade as a pro coach . . . recruiting is not among them.
Beyond this obvious distinction between Porter and Gray, there’s another — maybe just as obvious — that would seem to give Porter an edge: he’s familiar with what he’s getting into. Gray played in college for Texas and in Los Angeles with the Rams as a pro. He’s been in the nation’s capital most recently, and has seen some dysfunction under Redskin owner Dan Snyder. But he doesn’t know University of Memphis football, or the love/hate/apathy the enterprise has come to embody among Mid-South sports fans.
