GREENVILLE, S.C. - It wasn't the offensive explosion of the first two games, but the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team finally was able to make some plays Saturday evening.
The defense, meanwhile, remained dominant.
The fourth-ranked Mocs dominated the second and third quarters, building a 21-point lead, but needed a late onside-kick recovery to secure a 21-14 win in their Southern Conference opener at Furman.
In front of 5,347 fans at Paladin Stadium, the Mocs improved to 3-0 for the first time since 1991. They will be home to face Samford at 2 p.m. this Saturday.
Alejandro Bennifield threw for a score and ran for one in his first road start, going 11-for-14 for 146 yards passing, and he recovered the Paladins' onside kickat the end of the game. Derrick Craine added 83 yards rushing and a score.
Furman (0-3, 0-1) was held to 281 yards of total offense, but 151 came in the fourth quarter.
"It's a win, so we're excited about it," UTC coach Russ Huesman said. "We're probably not playing as good as we can play. We made the game way harder than it should have been. Furman has an excellent defense and we knew it would be hard, but thank goodness we hit some passes and got some points.
"Even last year, we had a defensive touchdown and scored at the end on a 94-yard drive, so it's not like we have Furman's number by any stretch of the imagination."
The UTC offense got better as the game went on. After a first quarter in which the Mocs totaled only 28 yards on 13 plays, they had 83 yards in the second quarter, taking a 7-0 lead on a 33-yard pass from Bennifield to C.J. Board, who had four catches for 48 yards. The third quarter was even better, as the Mocs had 161 yards of offense, with long passes to James Stovall and Xavier Borishade leading to short touchdown runs by Bennifield and Craine.
"In that third quarter, things started to click," Bennifield said. "We got into a groove, found out some things, some holes in their defense and took advantage."
That same attack seemed to get complacent in the final period, allowing the Paladins to rally behind backup quarterback and four-year captain Reese Hannon. He finished with 174 yards after spelling P.J. Blazejowski, who went down with an injury in the third quarter.
Thomas Gordon and Kealand Dirks had touchdown runs in the final eight minutes, the latter with 1:01 remaining to cut the lead to seven. Bennifield recovered the ensuing onside kick and the Mocs held on.
Nakevion Leslie had a career-high 15 tackles. He also had a sack and 1.5 tackles for loss and broke up three passes.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.