UTC's Jerrell Lawson stretches the ball across the goal line for a touchdown with Tennessee Tech's Melvin Holland Jr. on his back during the Mocs' season-opening win at Finley Stadium on Aug. 30. Lawson intercepted a pass on the play.It's been a while since a ranked college football team not named the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has played a regular-season game at Finley Stadium. Three years, to be exact.
That changes this evening when 17th-ranked Samford takes on the 3-0 Mocs in a Southern Conference matchup at 7.
A win for UTC would mean being 4-0 overall, 2-0 in the SoCon and likely being ranked next week, but the Mocs don't look at it that way.
"It's an opportunity for us, and we look forward to that," UTC coach Tom Arth said. "We want to play against the top teams in the country on a weekly basis, and we certainly have that this week. Our job is to go out there, prepare as hard as we possibly can all week long to put ourselves in position on Saturday to play as well as we can.
"That's what we ask our players to focus on; I don't want them thinking of anything outside of that. Certainly we understand what conference games are all about and what it means. We need to go out there and play as hard and as well as we can."
A Mocs victory tonight would be their first regular-season win over a ranked opponent at Finley Stadium since they defeated then-No. 20 The Citadel 31-23 on Nov. 14, 2015. Prior to that it was 15th-ranked Wofford 20-10 on Nov. 9, 2013. UTC is 7-6 at home against ranked competition this decade, with two of the wins coming in the Football Championship Subdivision national playoffs.
Samford (1-2, 0-1) provides one of the toughest tests to date, led by a high-powered offense that ranks 11th in the country in total yards and second in passing yards per game. Quarterback Devlin Hodges, an All-American last season, ranks second in SoCon history in passing yards (11,397).
The Bulldogs' defense is led by 2017 SoCon defensive player of the year Ahmad Gooden.
Samford was the preseason favorite to win the league and nearly earned the SoCon's first win over a Football Bowl Subdivision Power Five conference opponent since The Citadel defeated South Carolina in 2015. Samford led late before falling 36-26 at Florida State on Sept. 8.
That doesn't concern the Mocs.
"I have very little respect for preseason rankings, because all that is going off of what happened last year," offensive lineman Cole Strange said. "A win this week would be real big because it's a conference game, (and) we know that Samford is better than their record.
"It's not a team we should go out there and take lightly. We'll have to take them as seriously if not more seriously than we've taken all the other teams we've played, since it is a conference game and they are better than their record. But it would be a big win for sure."
The Mocs have maintained that this is just the next week on the schedule. It's just that a preseason top-10 team and current top-20 team in the country is that next opponent. The players say they'll be ready.
"I think that beating Samford would be a good thing for us, but the big thing for us is going 1-0 each week," linebacker Hawk Schrider said. "If we go 1-0 this week, we've accomplished our task. If we don't go 1-0, we haven't accomplished our task.
"We're not looking at this game as any different from the others, but we're definitely looking to go 1-0. That's the most important thing."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.