MACON, Ga. - After Saturday's third consecutive loss by 20 points or more, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football coach Tom Arth raised his hand.
His Mocs were flagged for a season-high 11 penalties - some drive-altering, on both sides of the ball. The rushing attack, while showing small glimpses of being effective, still failed to top 100 yards. The defense, while solid for most of Saturday's 30-10 loss to Mercer, fell victim to a few big plays that led directly to touchdowns.
But after the game, Arth shouldered the responsibility.
"When you're the leader, that comes with the territory," he said. "Everything that happens on the football field is my responsibility, whether I like that or not. That's the way it is; that's the way it always will be. When things go good, I'm sure I'll get a lot of credit, which I probably won't have a lot to do with, but players win games; coaches lose them, and that's the way it is."
The Mocs have been outscored 116-30 in their current slide. Four quarterbacks have played for them, and the offensive line is still being worked on, with redshirt freshman Cole Strange getting his first start against the Bears.
Penalties, which hadn't been a bad issue for the team all season, became one Saturday, with the 11 violations totaling 97 yards, also a season high. Some of those were pass-interference or defensive holding calls that extended Mercer drives, while the offense had a substitution infraction that pushed back a potential touchdown drive that ended up in a Victor Ulmo field goal.
"All we can do is fight," Arth said. "We've just got to keep getting better. We've got to stop hurting ourselves; we've got to grow up. We've got young guys that are playing, or guys that have never started before, but they've started seven games now, so we've got to stop repeating the same mistakes, got to stop hurting ourselves. If we stay in phase, we probably move the ball, but all of a sudden it's second-and 11-plus, and it's hard. It's hard to do that with any team, no matter how experienced, how talented when you're put in those situations.
"We can go out and win every game, or we can lose every game, but we've got to put ourselves in position to win games. We've got to start applying pressure to people, because right now all we do is feel pressure. We constantly feel pressure, and until we start applying it, it's going to be a tough road."
The Mocs' next three games are against teams that made the 2016 Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, starting with a home date this Saturday against The Citadel. After that are road games at Samford and Wofford.
"Everybody needs to do their job and do it to the best of their ability," said tight end Bailey Lenoir, who had career highs in catches (six) and yards (56). "Eventually everything will turn out as it should."
Notes
Ulmo's 44-yard field goal on the first play of the second quarter was a career long. Mercer quarterback Kaelen Riley finished with 232 yards passing and a pair of touchdowns, while receiver Chandler Curtis topped the team with 77 yards on eight catches. Both played at Calhoun High. In his first action of the season, UTC linebacker Dale Warren had seven tackles, including one for loss, but was whistled for an offside penalty early in the game.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.