Rodney Allison

Almost regardless of the question, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team hasn’t had the answer this season. That was again the case Saturday as Samford moved the ball effectively with its usual deliberation and efficiency, with a couple of big plays thrown in, and easily beat the Mocs 30-7.

Running back Chris Evans just did what he does: run hard behind his big offensive line and pile up the yards. The Southern Conference’s leading rushing had 134 yards and three touchdowns on 25 carries to power the Bulldogs’ offense.

“He was pretty good and I think we were pretty bad at times on defense,” Mocs coach Rodney Allison said. “We didn’t tackle well, and we’ve been an inconsistent tackling team all year.”

Samford had 359 yards of total offense to just 196 for UTC, which got its only touchdown on a 9-yard run by running back Erroll Wynn, who left the game in the second quarter with a broken fibula in his right leg.

The Bulldogs got the ball first, and the team that leads the SoCon in time of possession wasted no time reaching the end zone. On the second play of the game, with the Mocs pressed forward to try to stop Evans and the running game, quarterback Dustin Taliaferro hit Riley Hawkins for a 65-yard touchdown.

The Mocs got off to a good start on their first drive when Jare Gault hit Blue Cooper for a 23-yard completion on first down, but Gault later fumbled at the Samford 31-yard line. It was the first of four turnovers by quarterbacks Gault and Sloan Allison.

After Evans turned a screen pass into a 30-yard gain on third-and-15 earlier in the drive, he scored the Bulldogs’ second touchdown on a 9-yard run. Wynn scored a few minutes later to keep the game competitive for a little while, but Evans scored on a 5-yard run with 7:14 to play in the first half and Bob Hooper added a 29-yard field goal with 2:23 remaining to put Samford up 24-7 at the break.

Other than a bunch of penalties, there wasn’t much action in the second half. The only offensive highlight was Evans bursting loose down the left side for 26 yards, breaking Samford’s single-season rushing record in the process. He finished the season with 1,284 yards, breaking the previous record of 1,270 set by Surkano Edwards in 1992.

Evans capped that drive with a 6-yard run with 11:00 to play in the game.

For the Mocs, Clint Woods had five catches for 36 yards and Buster Skrine had a 69-yard kickoff return. But that was about it for yardage-producing highlights. Defensively, freshman safety Jordan Tippit looked like a veteran in the last game of his first season, totaling 12 tackles.