Samford game-planned in the first half of its game Saturday against University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to stop preseason All-America running back Derrick Craine, and quarterback Alejandro Bennifield burned the Bulldogs.
They chose to honor Bennifield's passing ability in the second half, and it was Craine's time to shine.
The 5-foot-10, 205-pound senior running back finished with a career-high 222 yards rushing and two touchdowns as the third-ranked Mocs won 41-21 in front of 8,714 at Finley Stadium. UTC is 4-0 for the first time since 1979.
The Mocs (2-0 in the Southern Conference) travel to East Tennessee State for a noon kickoff this Saturday.
"We beat a good football team today," UTC coach Russ Huesman said. "I think Samford is really good. They have unbelievable skill kids that are hard to tackle, and I think the quarterback is excellent. Thank goodness we ran the football like we did.
"It was a big, big team effort by a lot of people. I'm proud of our football team."
The UTC defense tied a season high with three turnovers and shut down a Samford offensive attack that entered the game averaging 56 points per game - tops in the country. The Bulldogs (2-1, 0-1) finished with 389 yards of total offense, with 251 coming in the second half when they were down 21 points. They had only 46 yards rushing, and the Mocs finished with five sacks, including three by Keionta Davis, who tied a career high.
Dale Warren set a career high with two sacks and had a team-high 10 tackles.
"At first, they started off fast, so it took us a minute to get used to," Warren said. "Once we did, our speed made up for their speed, and we have a lot better players than them so they couldn't run it or throw it like they would on other teams."
UTC had 521 yards of total offense - 285 rushing, 236 passing. Bennifield had 141 yards passing in the first quarter and 206 by halftime but was only 5-for-14 for 30 yards in the second half when Samford worked harder to defend the pass.
That's when Craine went to work, with 194 yards on only 14 second-half carries.
"The guy is a player-of-the-year watch list guy, so they're going to stop him early," Bennifield said. "That gives me my lanes to throw the ball, so once I make plays and the receivers make plays, that opens up the run so we're able to mix it up a little bit.
"Him being that good makes it easy for everybody."
The Mocs got on the board midway through the first quarter when Bennifield found a streaking Richardre Bagley running down the middle of the field. Bagley was stripped at the 5-yard line but was able to fall on the ball in the end zone for the game's first score.
UTC increased the lead with scores on two of its next four possessions. Bennifield found a gap up the middle of the field and sprinted 16 yards for a touchdown, and two possessions later he found Xavier Borishade wide open in the end zone for a 21-0 lead.
Samford was able to make a comeback, with a 17-yard touchdown pass from Devlin Hodges to a diving Kelvin McKnight and a 5-yard run by Roland Adams, the latter cutting the lead to 24-14 with 6:02 to play in the third quarter. UTC responded with 10 consecutive points - a 35-yard run by Craine on a fourth-and-1 play and a career-long 48-yard field goal by Henrique Ribeiro.
McKnight would score on a 35-yard pass from Hodges, but after a Trevor Wright interception Craine put the game away with five carries for 33 yards, the last carry a score from a yard out to make it 41-21.
Borishade and Bagley led the Mocs with 79 yards each on five and four receptions.
Hodges finished with 314 yards passing, with McKnight catching nine passes for 143 yards.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.