We’re not going to begin with Saturday night’s ending – which just might be the cementing of the first truly happy period in University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football over the past 26 years – but rather with the first drive of the second half against No. 18 Georgia Southern.
Like so many previous UTC opportunities to change the course of its moribund program since the early 1980s, the Mocs looked as if they had just completed a drive of sound and fury signifying nothing, as Coach Shakespeare once said.
Trailing 20-14 at intermission, they had manfully driven the ball to the GSU 12, only to suffer a holding penalty, then a missed 40-yard field-goal try.
At that precise moment, the kick falling short, you could almost feel Finley Stadium shrink from the air exiting the lungs of 17,414 Moc Maniacs, which just also happened to be the largest crowd to witness a UTC game in the place except for the day it opened in 1997.
But then a remarkable thing happened, a thing usually reserved for teams coached by LSU’s Lucky Les Miles.