Mocs fullback Jones being a leader with his blocking
Like many members of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team, Chris Jones had to make a change a few weeks ago.
With the Mocs having won only one game and in a three-game losing streak after a 30-10 defeat at Mercer, the seniors decided they didn’t want their final year to end in the embarrassing fashion it had unfolded.
Jones knew he would not get many tangible chances to help the team. So he has done what he can do — lead. Lead by example, lead by playing hard.
Lead by blocking, since he’s a lead blocker. The 5-foot-11, 250-pound fullback, who was in the Arkansas program for four seasons, has been instrumental in the progress of a UTC rushing attack that has averaged 139 yards the past two weeks after failing to reach 100 in six of the first seven games.
“He’s been great,” UTC coach Tom Arth said. “The last few weeks we’ve really started to see him show up and be the player he’s capable of being. He brings a certain confidence, a certain level of maturity to our team and the way he approaches the game. His mentality, he’s almost like a coach.
“He’s a professional the way he goes about his preparation. He’s gone out there, played well, played physical and has really been a big part of helping our run game improve.”
Jones played a season-high 21 snaps in the 23-21 upset of then-eighth-ranked Samford, and excluding sacks, the Mocs ran for 154 behind both Jones and the improving offensive line.
Being an experienced college player, there isn’t much that Jones hadn’t seen, especially since he was in the always competitive Southeastern Conference.
That has helped him this season as well. “The way I can separate myself is I know protections from the running back and fullback positions,” he said. “If the quarterback IDs something and the line slides one way, I know where to go, so that’s probably my advantage at fullback, plus the physicality.”
Jones said that after the Mercer game he had to “look myself in the mirror.”
“I was one of those guys that wasn’t being mature. I was pointing fingers and thinking I knew what was right and what to do,” Jones said. “My mentality since the Mercer game was to shut up and work. I put my head down and work and let everything else carry after that, and you can see that’s what the team has been doing. We haven’t been arguing; we’ve just been working and just trying to win.
“We just want to finish the rest of these games out with W’s. That’s just how it’s been.”