MEMPHIS -- The University of Memphis football team has proved several times over the past 10 years that it can compete with Tennessee within the sidelines.

These days, the bottom line is where the Vols' primacy over their in-state opponents is most evident.

While Tennessee's average margin of victory over the Tigers in the teams' last four meetings is a mere seven points -- and that doesn't even take into account Memphis' landmark 21-17 win in 1996 -- the battle of the budgets is a decidedly one-sided affair.

According to financial reports filed with the U.S. Department of Education for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005, Tennessee spent nearly twice as much on its football program than Memphis while raking in six times the revenue.

Officials from both schools note that the accounting process is far from uniform because of reporting variances, and that statistical anomalies can skew some of the raw data.

But as Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson said, "We're talking about apples and oranges. But by and large, they've got more of both."

Tennessee's football-specific expenses for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005, totaled $13,586,845, with revenues totaling $29,326,709.

Memphis, meanwhile, spent $7,030,197, far outstripping its $4,621,399 in football revenues -- a number affected by the Tigers' having had just five home games in 2004.

Tennessee's spending on salaries ($4 million), scholarships ($2 million) and recruiting ($880,000) was, by itself, nearly equivalent to the entire Memphis budget. And that doesn't take into account the $2.2 million the Vols paid out that year in game guarantees.

It's no surprise, then, that it costs the Vols nearly three times as much as Memphis to put a player on the field.

The Vols' operating costs for each of their 122 participants came to $26,580. It cost the Tigers an average of $9,817.

"It's obviously a disadvantage. I would be lying to say it's not," Memphis coach Tommy West said. "When you're talking about that big a difference in the budget ... it's a big difference.

"But I'm gonna tell my guys when they put their headgear on that it's not."

While the Vols spent more than twice as much on coaches' salaries last year than the Tigers did (approximately $4 million to $1.9 million), Johnson said the programs are on equal footing in other important ways.

Both teams, for instance, have 85 scholarship players and nine full-time staff members.

"The first thing I tell not only Tommy, but all the other coaches, is that their budgets are just like their monthly checks," Johnson said. "It's never enough, but it is what it is and you've got to make do with what you've got."

Johnson, however, acknowledges there are some things he'd like to do for the program but can't given the present financial constraints.

"The biggest disappointment for me is I haven't been able to provide Tommy with as much support as (UT coach Phillip Fulmer) has, such as a director of high school relations," Johnson said.

When asked what he'd do with a bigger budget, West rattled off a seemingly ready-made wish list.

"There's a lot of things I'd like to have. I make do with what I've got," he said. "I'd like to have a turf (practice) field. I'd like to have an indoor facility where I can go in and scrimmage and practice (in bad weather). I'd like to have the front (of the Murphy Complex) landscaped, but I don't have the money.

"That's where the differences are. They do have the money."

It so happens that West and Fulmer are well acquainted with the way the other side lives.

West was able to flex considerably more financial muscle when he was the head coach at Clemson from 1993-98, while Fulmer learned how to work on a shoestring during five years as an assistant at Wichita State in the mid-to-late '70s.

"I didn't have a budget at Clemson," West said. "I spent whatever I wanted. I flew around in my own plane. You probably waste a lot of money, but it's nice to have it."

Fulmer, on the other hand, said he has never forgotten what it was like to work in an environment where making more with less was considered an art form.

"I know about restraints," he said. "I painted the weight room myself (at Wichita State) and lined the field myself and all of those things. I was the assistant equipment guy and the assistant academics counselor. So I know what the restraints are."

Nor, at the same time, is he interested in adding to his first-hand knowledge.

Asked what the Vols would have to sacrifice if forced to work under the parameters of a Memphis-sized budget, Fulmer said they would likely have less glamorous facilities and a smaller recruiting budget.

"But if we didn't have those things," he quickly added, "I guess we wouldn't be the University of Tennessee, because as far as I know we've always had those things."