Mocs aim to take lessons from loss
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — If the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team needed a wake-up call, it came Saturday night.
And it was wearing all white.
The Mocs entered their game at rival East Tennessee State University with a chance to improve to 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the Southern Conference. They had been through battles in recent weeks against The Citadel, UT-Martin and Samford, earning narrow wins to push them into the Football Championship Subdivision rankings.
What they encountered was a hungry group of Buccaneers clamoring for the sort of statement win to show the country they have arrived as a quality program after returning to competition three years. They did that early, taking advantage of an overaggressive UTC defense for a touchdown on their second possession, then making the most of a Mocs turnover that led to another score for the home team.
It was a reversal of fortunes. In the three weeks preceding the ETSU game, the Mocs had fast starts and had to hold on for narrow victories. The Bucs never gave UTC that chance, taking advantage of three first-half turnovers by the Mocs to hold a 17-0 lead at the break.
The Mocs responded with a pair of scoring drives in the fourth quarter, UTC’s Kareem Orr, top, and D.J. Jackson tackle East Tennessee State running back Quay Holmes (11) during Saturday’s game in Johnson City. ETSU beat UTC 17-14, handing the Mocs their first defeat of the season.
the latter cutting the ETSU lead to 17-14, but UTC ran out of time on its final possession as the Bucs (4-1, 3-0) held on.
“We were undefeated. There’s no telling how we were thinking coming into the game,” said senior receiver Wil Young, who set single-game highs in catches (13) and yards 0(102) for his UTC career.
“We might have been lackadaisical — you probably could say that the way we played early — but I could definitely see it as a wakeup call moving forward.
“We just have to lock down on things we have to correct.”
Mocs coach Tom Arth has preached the concept of constantly getting better in practices and games,
and he and his assistants will have plenty of things to point to that need correcting when reviewing video of the loss.
The Mocs’ tough September included three road games, two of them UTC victories, and their next test isn’t likely to be any easier as Wofford (3-1, 2-0) comes to Chattanooga for a 3 p.m. matchup this
Saturday. In last week’s polls, the Terriers were seventh in the STATS FCS Top 25 and ranked sixth by the coaches; UTC was 20th and 24th.
“I think we knew exactly where we were at,” Arth said after the loss. “I don’t know if we had any kind of disillusion about what we are and what we aren’t. We feel confident we’re a good football team. I felt going into this thing we had an opportunity to get better, but we haven’t taken that next step yet and we’ve got to do that this week.
“We’ve got to take a step forward and be a better team the next time we come out.”
Mocs senior receiver Joseph Parker, who had 84 yards on eight catches against the Bucs, said the defeat could be one of the “best things that could happen to us.”
“You never know what’s going to happen after this, but we all love each other, play hard for each other,” he said. “We love our coaches, trust our coaches and trust each other. We’re going to come back like nothing else before and be the team we know we can be.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress. com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.