Mocs hit the road for their next SoCon test
Rusty Wright knew there was only so much time for his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team to celebrate last week’s 41-21 victory over Mercer.
Unlike last season against the Bears, this wasn’t a mid-November meeting where it felt like so much was on the line for UTC, which wound up losing that day in Macon, Georgia, then dropped the regular-season finale the following weekend to finish 6-5 and miss the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the fifth season in a row.
The Mocs’ payback win last Saturday against Mercer, ranked 11th in both Football Championship Subdivision polls at the time, came in mid-October and with four games remaining on the schedule. So while the margin of victory and the Mocs’ performance at Finley Stadium were impressive, nothing was won other than the game and the weekend.
The challenges that remain for the Mocs (6-1, 4-0), who are ranked sixth by FCS coaches and seventh in the Stats Perform Top 25, are at least as difficult as getting past the Bears.
That journey starts with Saturday’s 2 p.m. battle with Furman (6-2, 4-1) in Greenville, South Carolina. The Paladins, 24th in the Stats Perform poll, have lost 35-12 to Football Bowl Subdivision member Clemson, which is No. 5 in The Associated Press Top 25 this week, and
34-27 to SoCon co-leader Samford (6-1, 4-0), which is 13th in both FCS polls.
Three of the Mocs’ last four regular-season games are on the road, with trips to The Citadel (Nov. 5) and Western Carolina (Nov. 19) sandwiching the scheduled home finale against
Samford (Nov. 12).
Defensive end Ben Brewton said that although the Mocs enjoyed the victory over the Bears, they didn’t dwell on it beyond the weekend because the bigger goal for the regular season is to win the program’s first SoCon title since 2015.
“We focus back on the next week by knowing what the task is at hand,” Brewton said. “We know we want the championship to come to Chattanooga, so we lock in and focus on what we’ve got to do to get that championship.”
Players said the mentality starts at the top with Wright, who’s in his fourth season as coach at his alma mater.
“It’s something that we do every week,” cornerback CaMiron Smith said. “We’ve got to keep preparing every week the same way. We go to practice, we execute what we need to do, and it’s not different. We come into each game, whether we’re at home or away, we bring our own juice. We’ve got each other, however many travel with us, however many are there to support us, and we appreciate that. But at the end of the day, you look across the line to your brother so you’ve got his back, so it doesn’t really matter whether it’s on the road or at home. We’re going to be OK, I believe that.”
Added center Nick Cerimele: “One of my favorite parts about Coach Wright as a head coach is that everything is a oneweek mentality every week. We don’t look too far ahead, we don’t look behind. We just focus on the day to day, play by play, because that’s what’s going to win the game. We just try to keep that mentality every week.”
It’s that even-keeled approach that has Wright excited. He has always loved this team, getting openly emotional when talking about them after the Mercer win.
Each week still presents its own challenges. It’s just that Wright feels the 2022 Mocs will be prepared for them.
“I think we’ve got good seniors, good leaders, and if they continue to do those things, we’ll be fine,” he said. “We’re going to find out a lot about this football team in the next three or four weeks if it’s good enough or it’s not.”