On offense, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s personnel losses from last football season are considerable: four linemen with multiple years of starting experience, a former All-Southern Conference running back and four of the top six Mocs in receptions last fall, with the departures in that group including a former All-America tight end.
Yet look around at a UTC practice, and you don’t see strained, concerned expressions on the face of coach Rusty Wright, offensive coordinator Joe Pizzo and other staff members.
Do they know something we don’t?
One factor to consider is that the current offense doesn’t have a particularly high bar to climb if last season is the standard. In the nine-team SoCon, UTC finished in the middle of the pack or below in every offensive statistical category, even with all of that experience. But while the offense now lacks either experience or depth at every position, the players also appear to have a higher ceiling in terms of potential.
When Wright was hired ahead of the 2019 season, the perception was the Mocs didn’t have enough players who could make a difference on offense. Coaches tried to go get more playmakers, but by last season that group had essentially been whittled down to two guys: Ailym Ford and Tyrell Price, who combined to score 21 of the team’s 37 touchdowns.
“I’ve never claimed to be a genius or a guru about offense,” Pizzo said recently. “I’ve always felt like you just get the ball in the hands of the guys that can make plays and score touchdowns. That makes a lot of people a genius, but our genius was those two, and we didn’t have a lot of other touchdown makers on the team.”
Ford, the SoCon freshman of the year in 2019, remains. Now a 5-foot-9, 213-pound junior, he has rushed for 2,244 yards and 20 touchdowns in 22 career games, averaging 102 yards per game and 5.2 per carry.
Up front, former Central standout McClendon Curtis (6-6, 328) is back as a sixth-year senior, but he’ll be joined by as many as four new starters on the line.
The competition to start at quarterback is down to seniors Cole Copeland and Preston Hutchinson — each had a solid camp and made a play for the job as the Sept. 3 season opener against Wofford approaches — but the receiving corps is essentially all new. Still, the staff and the team remain confident.
“We’ve trained hard,” Ford said. “We’ve got wide receivers that can make plays, quarterbacks that can pull the ball and run the rock, we’ve got reliable running backs that can get out in the flats, run routes and also run between the tackles. We’ve got depth and we can play the whole game, so I feel like we can be very dynamic this year.”
Ford said the difference between this year and others was in the offseason.
“I feel like we’re more developed,” he said. “We watch a lot of film and find ways to make ourselves better at things that we did wrong, and I feel like that’ll make a big difference this season.”
There hasn’t been a rush to install everything, because this is a younger group as a whole. Wright said it may take a while to see just what they’re capable of, but he is pleased with the amount of talent the Mocs have accumulated during his tenure.
“Having more talent makes it more fun,” Pizzo said. “It allows me the opportunity to be a little bit more wide open, whereas the first two years, I felt like we had to run the football, we had to protect the defense and we had to not lose the football game, and I think now I can take a little bit more risk because there’s a good possibility we’re going to get a good reward out of it.
“They’ve got to show up and do it on Saturdays, but it’s been more fun. That may be why I’m more relaxed.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.
UTC 2022 SCHEDULE
All times Eastern and p.m.; SoCon games in bold
Sept. 3 — vs. Wofford, 6
Sept. 10 — at Eastern Illinois, 7
Sept. 17 — vs. North Alabama, 6
Sept. 22 — at Illinois, 8:30
Oct. 1 — at ETSU, 7:30
Oct. 15 — vs. VMI, 1:30
Oct. 22 — vs. Mercer, 1:30
Oct. 29 — at Furman, 2
Nov. 5 — at The Citadel, 2
Nov. 12 — vs. Samford, 1:30
Nov. 19 — at Western Carolina, 1