Rusty Wright wasn’t about to dwell on the events of 2021.
Last year didn’t go how anyone planned for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football program. It started with the Mocs playing four games in the spring, which yielded a 3-0 record with their true starters and a No. 9 national ranking in the Football Championship Subdivision before the program essentially punted with its lineup for the fourth game, a 35-28 loss to Mercer that was followed by UTC opting out of the remainder of its schedule days later.
Then came the fall, when UTC’s spring success led to deserved high expectations, but the Mocs failed to live up to those, stumbling to a 6-5 record that ended short of a Southern Conference title and the playoff berth the team aspired to.
Wright’s fourth year as head coach at his alma mater, though, will finally feature his first normal spring.
In 2019, there was flooding at Scrappy Moore Field, causing the program to scrap and find multiple venues to get 15 practices in. Then there were no spring practices in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which also led to the SoCon season and FCS playoffs being moved to the spring last year, so things are different in 2022 – in a good way.