Saturday was a confusing twist for Joseph Parker and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team.
The Mocs had thrived on fast starts and early leads on their way to a 4-0 start to the season: 13-7 at halftime against Tennessee Tech, 21-0 against The Citadel, 20-0 against UT-Martin and 17-0 against Samford. Yet at halftime against East Tennessee State in Johnson City, it was ETSU in control on the scoreboard, 17-0.
“To be honest, I don’t know (what happened),” Parker said Saturday night. “Nothing was going our way, no matter the situation. I don’t know what happened, but we couldn’t get things right and we turned on the switch a little late. We didn’t play like ourselves; we didn’t play like we ever play in the first half.
“It was a shocker; I don’t have an answer for you there.”
First the Buccaneers caught the Mocs defense out of position, leading to a 54-yard touchdown pass on a screen from Austin Herink to Quay Holmes. Then it was the UTC offense that contributed a mistake, with an incomplete screen pass from Nick Tiano to Lameric Tucker ruled a lateral and a fumble that was recovered by the Bucs at the UTC 10-yard line.
Holmes scored two plays later to put the Mocs in an early 14-0 hole.
By the second quarter, the Mocs had solved the offensive problems and were able to methodically move the ball down the field, while the UTC defense shut down the Bucs. By then, though, the problem offensively was turnovers, as Tiano fumbled on consecutive possessions, both times his arm being hit while attempting passes and ending what had been productive drives into ETSU territory.
The offense never got the running game consistently going, but Tiano and the receivers started to get in sync. In the final three quarters, the 6-foot-5, 240-pounder was 27-of-43 for 254 yards and a score, with 185 of those yards coming in the second half. Wil Young, who had career highs in catches (13) and yards (108), had 95 of his yards on nine catches after that first quarter. All of Parker’s production (eight catches for 87 yards) came in that span, while Bryce Nunnelly had 60 yards on seven catches after the first quarter.
The Mocs gained 305 yards in the final three quarters, with 247 coming on 49 second-half plays.
The defense held the Bucs to 84 yards in the second half.
But that disastrous first half hurt the Mocs in the end of the 17-14 loss that dropped the team to 4-1 overall and 2-1 in the Southern Conference, heading into a big contest Saturday at home against seventh-ranked Wofford.
“There’s a lot to look at negatively, but the guys made some plays in the second half,” UTC coach Tom Arth said. “Our defense had a lot of stops to give our offense a chance, but unfortunately we took a little bit too long to get it going on offense.”
The Mocs still haven’t been able to put together the sort of complete game they’ll need for this season to go the way they want. It nearly cost them in their first two conference games, and it finally did Saturday.
“We’ve just got to play hard, play together, play Chattanooga football,” Parker said. “We didn’t come out and play Chattanooga football. Our brand didn’t show up, but we’ve got to change that.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.