MEMPHIS -- Rocky Top or the Grove?

Rebels or Volunteers?

Go Big Orange or Hotty Toddy?

With apologies to Arkansas, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt, there's little question that Memphis's greatest SEC loyalties lie with Ole Miss and Tennessee.

Or is that Tennessee and Ole Miss?

As the teams prepare for Saturday's showdown in Knoxville, will Memphis be pulling more for the Rebels or for the Vols?

Ole Miss's Oxford campus sits a mere hour or so away, while Tennessee's home in Knoxville is a six-hour drive to the east, plus an hour for time-zone considerations.

Tennessee, however, has a larger alumni base in the Memphis area than does Ole Miss.

But those factors don't take into consideration the fans of both schools, those who buy the T-shirts and watch the games on TV and phone the radio call-in shows, who haven't necessarily ever stepped foot on or attended a class at either campus.

That almost unquantifiable X-factor complicates matters.

In an attempt to find out which school has the most sympathizers here in Memphis, we asked shop owners, TV executives, drinks manufacturers -- and a few fans as well -- which program they think is No. 1.

And which is, well, not.

Merchandise

The interior walls of It's Game Day are painted green for a very good reason.

"That's nobody's color," said Cynthia Graham, who with her husband, Troy, owns the collegiate sports-themed shop at 5040 Sanderlin.

When the Grahams opened for business three years ago, they used local alumni figures to help determine their order allotments for each of the schools whose products they planned to carry.

While University of Memphis items "sell really well," Ole Miss has emerged as It's Game Day's bread and butter.

"We made the assumption when we opened the store that we'd sell more Tennessee than anybody else," Cynthia said. "But traditionally we sell more Ole Miss than we do Tennessee."

The tailgating tradition at the Grove in Oxford helps It's Game Day sell Ole Miss tents, chairs, plates, cups and napkins.

"And, of course, clothing," Cynthia said. "We do sell more Ole Miss stuff, but we tend to buy more Ole Miss stuff ... We buy what sells."

While the Rebels may come out on top at It's Game Day, they shouldn't get complacent.

The Vols' unlikely come-from-behind win over LSU on Monday night led to a spike in sales of Tennessee merchandise, Cynthia said.

Still, this one goes in the Hotty Toddy column.

Rebels 7, Vols 3.

Television

For Jefferson Pilot Sports and its local affiliate, Saturday's matchup between the Vols and Rebels should result in a ratings bonanza.

Matthew Van Ormer, director of marketing and research for JP Sports, which syndicates SEC games locally on WLMT-TV, said Tennessee and Ole Miss are easily its biggest ratings winners in the Memphis area.

OK, but who's the bigger draw?

"The whole state of Tennessee skews toward Tennessee," Van Ormer said. "In Memphis, I would put Ole Miss as the No. 2 team behind Tennessee. It really comes down to matchups for the most part, but they're No. 1 and No. 2, for sure."

The ratings contest has been a tight one through the first month of the 2005 season.

The Vols' season-opening win over UAB drew an 8.7 rating on WLMT, while the Rebels' loss to Vanderbilt two weeks later pulled in a very respectable 8.4, about three points higher than normal for that matchup on JP.

However, last year's numbers skew in Tennessee's favor.

The Vols pulled in an 8.7 against South Carolina, a 6.0 against Vanderbilt and a 7.9 rating against Kentucky, while the Rebels' meetings with Vanderbilt and Arkansas drew a 5.1 and a 6.1 rating, respectively, in the Memphis area.

"Tennessee will go as high as a 12 or 13 rating depending on who they're playing," Van Ormer said. "The Ole Miss-Mississippi State game will do double digits, but that's about as high as you can expect to get."

That sounds like a clear-cut win for the Vols.

"Generally speaking, if we worried just about Memphis and wanted to put on the team that would get the highest ratings, we'd go with Tennessee," Van Ormer said.

Touchdown, Tennessee!

Vols 13, Rebels 10.

Soft drink promotion

Anyone who drinks Coca-Cola on even a semi-regular basis will have seen the company's Football Town USA promotion.

They'll also have noticed that the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Memphis is distributing cans this football season featuring the schedules of two area college teams.

Ole Miss is one of them. The UofM is the other. Tennessee, like the others a Coke-sponsored school, is conspicuous by its absence.

And it's no coincidence, either.

"The whole Football Town USA program is a platform that can be applied to high school, college or pro teams, whichever ones are most relevant in your town," said Susan McDermott, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola North America and a Rhodes College graduate. "It's up to the local bottler to decide which Coke-sponsored teams to feature."

Translation: Touchdown, Rebels!

Local Coca-Cola representatives did not return messages seeking comment regarding the decision to feature Ole Miss instead of Tennessee, but Vols fans can take solace in the subliminal:

The background of the UofM schedule, somewhat mysteriously, bears a striking resemblance to UT orange.

Rebels 20, Vols 16.

Alumni

Jana Fuqua spent most of Thursday getting chores done around her home.

Why not wait for the weekend? Fuqua has a party to plan.

On Saturday, an expected 100-200 members of the Memphis and Shelby County UT Alumni Association will pack into the Fox & Hound in Cordova to watch the Vols take on the Rebels.

"I think it's a huge game. Any SEC game is," Fuqua said. "But it's always more fun when you're favored by 21 points."

Ouch. Give them six!

According to the University of Tennessee's alumni office, there are 16,281 UT alums living in Shelby County, along with 719 in Tipton County and 359 in Fayette County.

A member of the alumni office at Ole Miss, meanwhile, estimated there were about 10,000 alums living in the Memphis area.

But Ole Miss has a decided edge south of the border: It has 2,215 alums in DeSoto County alone compared to UT's 871 in the nebulous-sounding "North Mississippi" area.

Despite the fact that Tennessee's numbers include alums of UT-Martin and Chattanooga, not to mention UT-Memphis, Fuqua is more than willing to claim victory for the Vols in the fan volume department.

"Ole Miss would probably say they have a larger alumni base here, but you don't have to have gone to the school to love the school," Fuqua said. "I would say we have the best and most fans."

While UT fans will be congregating at the Fox & Hound, Rebel Club of Memphis president Lynn Adkins was not aware of any specially planned local functions for Ole Miss fans during Saturday's game.

He even admits to having sold his tickets for the game.

Fummmmble!

Seriously, though, Adkins can be forgiven. He will instead be attending a concert in Oxford that will benefit victims of the recent hurricanes.

"I'll be keeping a close eye on the TV," Adkins promised.

With about 450 members, the Rebel Club of Memphis is second in size only to the one in Jackson, Miss. Its annual kickoff meeting drew about 650 Ole Miss supporters to the Memphis Botanical Gardens, where new coach Ed Orgeron addressed fans.

"There's been a lot of excitement with the Ole Miss supporters. We think Coach 'O' brings a lot of excitement and new ideas," Adkins said. "It's been a little disappointing. Most people thought we'd beat Wyoming."

Adkins recovers well, though, when asked whether UT and Ole Miss alums ever consider holding a joint function when the Rebels and Vols meet.

"It's not that there's any big problem between the two groups. A lot of those Tennessee fans are good fans," Adkins said. "But I'm more comfortable when I'm with a bunch of Rebels."

A good finishing flurry makes this round a draw.

Rebels 27, Vols 23

One man's opinion

Perhaps no one has considered the question of whether Memphis is more an Ole Miss town or a Tennessee town more than George Lapides.

It's a question that has vexed Lapides over the years in his various guises as newspaperman, TV personality and talk radio host.

"I've never quite been able to determine the answer," he said. "It was always hard to determine who should get priority in terms of coverage."

Lapides' memories of the UT-Ole Miss football series date to the 1947 game, when the Rebels hammered the Vols, 43-13, in Memphis.

In those days, when Ole Miss regularly played home games against Tennessee at Crump Stadium (the Vols and Rebels have met 24 times in Memphis, first in 1902 and most recently in 1996) Lapides said there was no question what sort of town Memphis was.

"I know it was an Ole Miss city," he said. "(Former Tennessee coach) Gen. (Robert) Neyland used to say -- I know because he said it to me -- that he didn't like coming to Memphis and there being more Ole Miss fans than Tennessee fans."

Johnny Majors expressed a similar sentiment when, during his debut season as Vols coach in 1977, Tennessee lost to Ole Miss, 43-14, before a Rebel-dominated crowd in Memphis.

"In the postgame, when we were talking to him, he said, 'UT is Tennessee's team. We come here to play Ole Miss, and they've got more fans?' " Lapides said. "He couldn't understand it."

But the Vols started winning again under Majors -- they've claimed parts of five SEC titles since 1985 -- and Ole Miss began playing more games in Jackson, Miss.

Tennessee is 14-3 against Ole Miss since 1977, with just three of those games being played in Memphis.

When the teams do play here, it tends to be a big draw: The 1990 meeting, won 22-13 by Tennessee in a battle of top-20 teams, drew a record crowd of more than 66,000 to Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

"After Majors started to do fairly well, and Tennessee became a national power again and started expanding their stadium ... I think it shifted then and Tennessee finally started to catch up with Ole Miss," Lapides said. "I think it's 50-50 now."

But they don't have ties in college football anymore.

Oh, well, what the heck.

A late touchdown and two-point conversion pulls Tennessee even.

Final score: Rebels 34, Vols 34.