Mocs’ 3-0 start creates dilemma
UTC’s Wright manages roster with eye on fall
Maybe Rusty Wright has the ultimate poker face when it comes to being in charge of a Football Championship Subdivision team in 2021.
When the coronavirus outbreak led to the postponement of league competition and the playoffs for FCS programs in 2020, that meant having two seasons this calendar year, so the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach is leading his team through Southern Conference play this spring while keeping in mind an 11-game regular season that kicks off in September.
Wright has made it abundantly clear he views the spring as more for development than trying to earn accolades, but now his team has dealt him some cards that make his hand a little bit more tricky to play.
The Mocs are ranked ninth in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 after starting SoCon competition 3-0 with wins against Wofford, at The Citadel and at Furman — teams that were ranked ahead of UTC in the preseason. In the latter two games, the Mocs dominated at the start to build quick leads before turnovers and uncertainty in the kicking game allowed the Bulldogs and the Paladins to rally. Yet UTC came out on top.
The Mocs (3-1 overall in 2020-21) face Mercer (2-4, 2-2) at noon Saturday at Finley Stadium, and it will be their first home game in front of fans — only parents were allowed in the stands for the spring opener against Wofford — since Nov. 16, 2019. On that day, an announced crowd of 7,363 watched the Mocs rally from down two scores in the fourth quarter to defeat The Citadel 34-33; now, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the maximum allowed will be 5,000.
Although Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and teams had
their 2020 schedules altered and reduced amid the pandemic, there were FBS games every Saturday once the season kicked off in September. The Mocs had to sit back and watch with only one opportunity to suit up themselves, a 13-10 loss at Western Kentucky.
Now, having taken care of the projected top half of the SoCon standings, are they really ready to take their foot off the gas?
“We definitely missed football in the fall,” junior linebacker Kam Jones said recently. “We all have different friends and former teammates at other schools, so watching them, it hurt a little bit. So actually being able to go out there and take advantage of it, it’s no way to really describe it.”
So as fans return to Finley for UTC football games, who will they see playing for the home team?
Wright is trying to balance his feelings about managing a roster for spring and fall schedules against the real possibility this team could run the table and qualify for the playoffs that start in mid-April. His players want to be on the field, but those same players just watched starting center Kyle Miskelley go out for the season with a lower-body injury. And there were some in that same locker room who expressed hesitation about playing at all this school year once the conference schedule was postponed from last fall.
It’s football, though — right, Coach? Injuries happen. Next man up?
“No doubt, there’s injuries in football,” Wright said this week, “and I understand that completely. You know, the only way I can protect them is by not playing them, and that’s the thing, the problem I get into is Furman is going to play their best (players). So what do I do for this program and my guys that are going out there? I’ve got to put the best guys I can possibly put out there, and that’s the dilemma you get into because after a day, nobody remembers. If we would have gone out there at Furman and got beat 35-0, nobody’s going to remember on Monday.
“It puts you in a bad spot to put these kids in a bad spot because I’ve got to put the best I can put out there or somebody is going to get hurt who’s not ready to go play.”
So what positions are going to be affected? Well, probably both lines of scrimmage. Harrison Moon, an offensive lineman in his sixth season of college football, and Cole Strange, who is in his fifth season, may not play again this spring, opening the door for freshmen Brock Bethea and Cam Perry. On defense, it’s possible that tackle Christian Smith’s spring is done and players such as transfer Giovanni Reviere — the former McCallie standout who started 13 games as a freshman at Purdue — and freshmen John Prince and Quay Wiggles will be more involved.
The same can be said at inside linebacker, where the days of spring football could be numbered for both Jones and Ty Boeck, and at cornerback, where senior Jordan Jones may rest in favor of Kam Brown. Maybe fifth-year free safety Jerrell Lawson and fourthyear strong safety Brandon Dowdell are about finished for the spring, too.
It’s unlikely the quarterbacks will be affected much. Fifth-year senior Drayton Arnold has played in nine career games, Cole Copeland seven. Both players need experience, so it’s likely both will be available the rest of the season.
So could all of what Wright has said just be a smokescreen, with UTC going all out in pursuit of the program’s first conference championship since 2015? The answer to that could be yes, but not using some key players doesn’t mean those replacing the starters aren’t worthy of the bigger roles. They’re just younger. “We need to see if some of these young guys can play,” Wright said. “We need to see what we’ve got to get them better at going into the fall, because here’s the thing: We could keep doing this. I could be playing with those guys very easily, but I’ve got to find out if I can play with some of the younger ones.”