Widmyer-led Terriers terrorize UTC

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — For more than a quarter, it looked like the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga could give ninth-ranked Wofford a football game. For nearly three quarters, the host Terriers showed why that wasn’t going to happen.

After the Mocs tied the score early in the second quarter, Wofford cruised to a 56-7 Southern Conference win Saturday at Gibbs Stadium.

The Terriers’ offense isn’t designed for quick strikes, but that’s what happened against a Mocs defense that continues to give up big plays.

Wofford quarterback Ben Widmyer ran 75 yards for a touchdown on the Terriers’ second play from scrimmage, and he added a 35-yard touchdown run and touchdown passes of 28 and 50 yards.

None of Wofford’s eight scoring drives lasted three minutes, and the Terriers finished with 564 yards of total offense, more than triple UTC’s total of 191.

“It’s mistakes. We’re making too many mistakes and it’s costing us,” UTC senior defensive end Neil Brown said. “If you look at it, basically all the mistakes we made today ended up as touchdowns.”

Saturday’s thrashing continues a trend, both for UTC (1-6, 0-3) this season and against Wofford (4-1, 2-0). All six of UTC’s losses have been by 24 points or more, and the Mocs have dropped three in a row to the Terriers by a combined 130 points. Wofford won 55-0 in 2006 and 42-16 at Finley Stadium last season.

Looking more frustrated and agitated than he had after any of the Mocs’ previous losses, coach Rodney Allison didn’t try to sugarcoat what happened on the field in front of a delighted homecoming crowd of 8,394.

“We didn’t play very well, didn’t coach very well, didn’t get it done — it’s pretty simple,” Allison said. “It’s hard to prepare for (Wofford) and we didn’t do a very good job. ... I thought we had a good plan. It just didn’t work.”

The loss dropped Allison’s career record to 17-46, which includes just three wins in almost 24 months. The loss also guarantees that UTC can do no better than a .500 record this season, and winning out will be no easy task with No. 12 Elon coming to Chattanooga next Saturday and games against No. 2 Appalachian State and No. 25 The Citadel still on the schedule.

“We’ll regroup,” said Allison, who is in the final year of his contract. “I’m sure like any team in this situation, confidence is a little shot, but we’ve got five games left and I’m not going to give in to the fact that we’re not going to win. I’m not going to let these guys (either). That’s not in my nature — that’s not who I am. I’m not going to do that.

“We’re going to play it until the end, and if it ain’t good enough, it ain’t good enough.”

The score was still 7-0 early in the second quarter before UTC went on a 10-play, 76-yard drive to tie it on Jare Gault’s 11-yard pass to Chris Pitchford in the back of the end zone with 10:40 to play until halftime. But the Terriers scored three touchdowns before halftime and didn’t let up the rest of the game.