Tom Arth loves watching video of the quarterbacks his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team will face.
So, of course, the first-year Mocs coach has enjoyed studying Tyrie Adams.
The Western Carolina quarterback is the catalyst of an offense that ranks third in the Football Championship Subdivision in yards per game and fourth in rushing yards per game. Adams ranks second in the Southern Conference with 1,080 passing yards and 10 touchdown passes while also ranking fourth in the league in rushing yards per game with an average of 73.8.
“I think he’s such a tough player,” Arth said. “He’s so competitive – just the way the other players are around him, the way they respond to him, the way they rally behind him, you see that. It comes through on tape. It tells you what kind of leader he is, tells you about his toughness, his competitiveness.
“He’s such a dynamic player as a passer and a runner, but they have some incredible weapons around him.”
Catamounts running back Detrez Newsome, an All-American last season, is fourth in the country in rushing yards per game. Receivers Terryon Robinson and Steffon Hill rank in the top 10 in the league in receptions per game, with Robinson also ranking second with 110.3 yards per game, but it all starts with Adams, a redshirt sophomore.
He’s a much different quarterback than he was last season, when the Catamounts – lacking depth at the position and not wanting to risk injury – forced him to sit in the pocket, stripping the offense of a lot of the run-pass option principles that typically come with a team coached by Mark Speir. With improved depth behind him, Adams has the freedom – and room – to run.
“That offense is very well-run,” UTC safety Lucas Webb said. “The fact that he has developed – he’s definitely a lot better passer and he’s more confident in throwing and running. That offense definitely has some athletes, and they’re always going to be pumped up.
“They’re looking at us and thinking, ‘This is the year that we get to beat them.’ We have to be able to do our job when we get the opportunity, minimize their opportunities and stop the big plays.”
The Mocs allowed 164 yards in last week’s 63-7 win at Virginia Military Institute, with 103 coming on a pair of big plays: a 30-yard completion from Austin Coulling to Rohan Martin on the first play of the game, and a 73-yard catch-and-run by Javeon Lara on a pass from Duncan Hodges. VMI’s 39 other plays gained 61 yards, and UTC forced four turnovers.
The Mocs (1-3, 1-0) will have to be equally sound this week, because the Catamounts (3-1, 1-0) rank second in the league in rushing offense (296.0) and passing offense (275.2) while leading the SoCon by having averaged 40.2 points per game – good for 13th in the country. Arth said his staff believes the Mocs can match up with “any style of play,” and Saturday’s game at Finley Stadium will be an excellent test of that.
“This is a tremendous challenge for us,” UTC defensive coordinator Tom Kaufman said. “It’s very exciting. The players are very, very excited about it. We’ve already spent a good amount of time talking about the plan and the things we need to do in order to defend this offense, and we’re very excited about the challenge.
“It’s what you coach and play for.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.