Pastore passes Mocs to win

Tony Pastore was the quarterback he always thought he could be Saturday night. The same could be said about Clint Woods and Blue Cooper at wide receiver.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga needed for the trio to be good, too, even against an NAIA school. Powered by one big offensive play after another, the Mocs overcame a stop-and-start first half and rolled by Cumberland University, 47-6, in their home opener at Finley Stadium.

“I probably haven’t played up to my capability since I’ve been in college, and I really wanted to come out here today and show that I am capable of being a player,” said Pastore, who had six turnovers in his start at Jacksonville State last season.

Pastore took over for starter Jare Gault on the Mocs’ fourth possession and proceeded to connect with Woods and Cooper repeatedly, putting at ease the UTC fans in the crowd of 6,003 who had to be a little anxious at halftime when the Mocs (1-1) held a modest 16-6 lead.

Playing a little more than two quarters, Pastore finished 15-for-27 for 320 yards, with touchdown passes of 26, 24 and 6 yards and an interception in the fourth quarter. Pastore is the first UTC player to throw for more than 300 yards since Cedric Stevens threw for 364 against Liberty in 2004.

Gault, who also started in the opener against Oklahoma, was 5-for-9 for 48 yards, with a 4-yard touchdown run. However, Mocs coach Rodney Allison said he wasn’t thrilled with some of his decision-making.

“Jare got off to an inconsistent start. He missed a couple of things early,” Allison said.

And because of the way Pastore ran the offense, Allison said he will likely start this Saturday at Florida State.

“We’ll look at it again to see where we are with everything,” Allison said, “but we’ll probably go with Tony.”

The Mocs, who had 243 yards of offense in the first half but only 16 points to show for it, dominated the Bulldogs (1-1) in the second half — and had the points to go with it. Both Cooper and Woods had touchdown catches in the second half, and Erroll Wynn and Shaun Kermah each ran the ball in as UTC outscored Cumberland 31-0.

“We need to play like that from the beginning. We can’t wait until the second half,” said Cooper, who finished with 10 catches for 159 yards and two touchdowns.

Woods, meanwhile, caught eight passes for 175 yards and a touchdown. The Mocs finished with 503 yards of offense to just 283 for the Bulldogs.

“We got the ability to (have big passing games), but we’ve just got to have time and make plays,” Woods said.

The Mocs also got some big plays from their defense, including three interceptions and a blocked punt. Jordan Hazard also helped out the offense with a couple of big returns.

“We did a lot of good things in this game,” Pastore said.

Indeed, but there were some miscues also. Several receivers dropped passes, the running game didn’t do much, there were some missed tackles and blown coverages on defense, and kicker Craig Camay missed an extra point and two field goal attempts in the first half.

“The most disappointing thing the whole game was our ineffectiveness running the football,” Allison said. “We’re going to run the football around here, and we didn’t get the results that we should have gotten, in my opinion, in this game.”

Wynn and Kermah combined for 134 yards on 30 carries, though those numbers got a boost late in the game with Kermah’s 24-yard touchdown run. Cumberland’s only points came on a 27-yard touchdown pass from Matt Eads to Dexter Elston in the second quarter.