When the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football program made its most recent visit to East Tennessee State University back in 2018, UTC players called the Buccaneers’ William B. Greene Stadium one of the loudest venues they’d competed in.
The Mocs had just broken into the Football Championship Subdivision national rankings that season after a 4-0 start, while the Bucs were 4-1 (with a loss to Tennessee) and were playing for just the third time in the stadium ETSU built from scratch after reviving its football program a few years earlier. The hosts jumped out to a 17-0 lead before the Mocs rallied but ultimately lost 17-14.
UTC offensive lineman McClendon Curtis, now a team captain, was a redshirt freshman at the time.
“It’s a pretty tight place,” he said of Greene Stadium, which seats 7,694 but had an announced crowd of 9,277 for that game. “Their student section was right behind the offensive line’s bench, and although I can’t say most of the stuff they were saying, I do remember they were chanting ‘Georgia reject’ to one of my guys (Chris Barnes).”
CaMiron Smith, now a fifth-year senior and the voice of experience in UTC’s young secondary, appeared in every game as a freshman in 2018, including that trip to Johnson City where he saw “a different atmosphere” for an FCS game.