Mocs welcome Golden Eagles to open 2018 football season
It’s doubtful that the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team is going to vault into any FCS Top 25 poll based on Thursday night’s victory — the score was 34-10 before a long rain delay at the 10:25 mark of the fourth period — over visiting Tennessee Tech at Finley Stadium.
Yes, there were moments of greatness by the victors, especially that 89-yard touchdown pass from Nick Tiano to Bryce Nunnelly midway through the second quarter, which was also the play that put the Mocs up for good in this one.
Nunnelly looks to be the kind of fleet and raw-boned receiver who could scare Southern Conference defensive backs for years to come, given that the Walker Valley graduate is but a sophomore.
As for Tiano, the reports of his dramatic improvement from an injury-shortened 2017 season appear to be underplayed, if anything. By the close of the third quarter, a thunderstorm about to suspend play, the Baylor School grad and Mississippi State transfer had amassed a stat line of 299 passing yards, two touchdown throws and 27 net rushing yards. And his lone interception — which Tech returned for a touchdown — might just as easily have been ruled a fumble.
Point is, needing to show big improvement from last year’s disappointing 3-8 record, the Mocs did just that under second-year coach Tom Arth, even if Tech oddly refused to allow the game to be called despite that 24-point deficit and lightning blowing up the sky for close to 90 minutes. It’s certainly fair for first-year Tech coach Dewayne Alexander to want play the full 60 minutes in his first game, but with the lightning still flashing beyond 11 p.m., finishing the game also meant a very late night and short sleep for the TTU student-athletes in a game they were showing no sign of winning.
But Arth seemed to know his team was going to win this one long before kickoff, even noting at the Mocs’ weekly media luncheon Tuesday: “I’ve don’t know if I’ve ever been as excited for a group of players.”
Maybe this was why. Though Tech is certainly no juggernaut, given its 1-10 record a season ago, this game was never really in doubt, even when the Golden Eagles briefly led 7-6 following that interception return for a touchdown.
Instead, UTC more than doubled TTU in first-quarter yards (121-54) and was almost as dominant after three quarters (399 to 207). Moreover, so many of the scoring plays were electric in nature, with or without the game-shortening lightning storm that followed.
Nunnelly’s TD was the game-changer. But senior Wil Young caught a 63-yard scoring strike from Tiano and juco transfer running back Tyrell Price looked like an FCS All-American on his 40-yard TD run.
To return to a line that Arth uttered earlier in the week to describe Price: “Tyrell showed an acceleration and burst I didn’t know he had.”
Unfortunately for the Mocs, everyone will now have seen such acceleration, though knowing it’s there and stopping it could be quite different things.
If nothing else, this game was filled with the kind of highlights on both offense and defense that should make even the most casual of fans want to return to Finley Stadium on Sept. 22 for UTC’s huge Southern Conference showdown with highly ranked Samford.
Again, Tech might again be awful. UTC’s second game eight days from today at The Citadel will bring a more accurate barometer of how far this team has come in year two of the Arth Era. So, too, might the third game of the season at UT-Martin on Sept. 15.
And there would certainly appear to be room for improvement, if not a great need for improvement moving forward. Tech quarterback Bailey Fisher ran for 53 net yards in three quarters up the middle of the defense, throwing for 81 more yards when the Mocs compensated for the run-first quarterback. Price’s heroics aside, the running game still needs more consistency, though it seems clearly superior to last year’s anemic ground attack.
That said, almost no one plays perfectly on opening night. The trick is to get the win, build on what went well and correct what went wrong.
By that mindset alone, this was an overwhelmingly positive start. Or as senior wideout Bingo Morton noted Tuesday: “Starting the season 1-0 is the first goal because you can’t win them all if you don’t win the first one. Our number-one goal this week is to start off with a great win.”
So consider this a great win on which to build a much better season. Consider this, too: Half of the college football teams that will have played by the close of this Labor Day weekend would happily trade their 0-1 record for the Mocs’ 1-0 start.
After last year’s 1-7 start, that should excite even the most hard-to-please UTC football fan.