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Chattanooga: Mocs trying to remain positive

By: John Frierson
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Joseph Pitman

The first half of the season didn’t go the way the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga wanted. Not by a long shot. The Mocs played six games and earned one win, against Cumberland, an NAIA school.

Saturday’s 52-28 home loss, to Georgia Southern, was the Mocs’ fourth in a row and fifth of the season, all of them by at least 24 points. But the Mocs still have six games over the next seven weeks to try and turn things around, and that’s what the players were focused on Sunday.

“We’re better than we’ve been playing, and we’ve got to play better than that — and that’s offense, defense and special teams,” senior tight end Joseph Pitman said. “We got to keep practicing hard, keep working hard, everybody’s got to come to work every day and we got to execute. That’s been our big problem, execution.

“I know I messed up a few times (Saturday), everybody did, so everybody’s got to do what they’re supposed to do. That’s really what we got to do because we got the talent to beat everybody in this conference.”

The Mocs (1-5, 0-2) will try for their first Southern Conference win this week at ninth-ranked Wofford (3-1,1-0), which was off Saturday. Offensively, UTC will head into the game feeling a little better about itself after a solid game by quarterback Jare Gault and after gaining 406 yards of total offense against the Eagles.

A week after struggling to run the offense at Furman, Gault played within the system for the most part, Mocs coach Rodney Allison said, limited his runs to nine attempts and was 17-for-32 passing for 205 yards. He also threw the first two touchdown passes of his UTC career, including a 76-yarder to Jordan Hazard.

“I thought we made some progress on offense,” Allison said. “Jare was really steady; there are a few technical things he still needs to work on, but overall I thought he did pretty good.”

Making progress on offense wasn’t good enough to get a victory when poor punt protection resulted in a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown, for the second game in a row, and when the defense gave up 425 yards of offense, including seven plays of 18 yards or more.

‘We got to play more consistent on offense and defense,” senior offensive lineman William Giles said. “We can’t go out there and go three-and-out, three-and-out, three-and-out and expect the defense to be able to hold them every time. We got to go out there and get some more drives going and they got to go out there and get some three-and-outs for us, so it works both ways.

“You hate to put up 28 points and gain 400 yards and get beat like we did, but you got to play better as a team, more cohesive and kind of build off each other and get it going in the right direction.”

When they arrived at McKenzie Arena on Sunday for their usual workout and meetings, the players appeared in good spirits, having put the loss behind them overnight.

“I think that’s kind of what we do here,” Allison said. “That’s one of the philosophies that we have and unfortunately that’s had to happen more than we’d like.”

Several players suffered from cramps Saturday but for the first time since the opener the Mocs got through a game without any significant injuries. Allison said wide receiver Blue Cooper, who missed the game with a concussion, is expected back this week, and Allison is hopeful that linebacker Aaron Adams, defensive end Josh Beard and defensive tackle Nick Craig can also return after being out for several weeks.

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