Entering his senior year of high school in Atlanta, life seemed pretty set for Quay Wiggles.
He was a Division I football recruit and had committed to Georgia Tech in April 2019, but not long before signing day, the Atlantic Coast Conference program decided not to take him, leaving his future suddenly in flux.
Not one to worry or stress the process, Wiggles continued to pray and believe something was going to work out. Meanwhile, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coaches had found out about him suddenly being available right after the December signing period and immediately jumped on him.
Adversity wasn’t new for the Mays High School standout, who was 2 years old when his father died.
Were there anxious moments for Wiggles? Sure, but as his mom Amber told him, “The things you can’t control, just give to God and let him control it.”
“I just kept saying that I’m going to figure it out,” he said. “It’s all going to come together, and the storm is going to end — it’s not going to last forever. I just knew all I had to do was just keep faith and stay down, and one day a college coach will reach out to me and tell me that they have an opportunity for me.”
Was it an easy process for the UTC coaching staff? Not at all, because Illinois had stepped in as a potential school for Wiggles as well. Or as UTC coach Rusty Wright said earlier this week, “We had to fight our tails off to get him.”
But the skills that made the 6-foot-2, 264-pound defensive end such a valued prospect back then have helped him earn playing time since arriving in Chattanooga. He has shown the ability to perform both inside as a defensive tackle and outside as a defensive end in the Mocs’ scheme, and the only reason he hasn’t played more is because he’s the primary backup to Devonnsha Maxwell, a three-time All-Southern Conference selection with multiple All-America honors.
“I think Devonnsha has more of an effect on Quay than any coach or any player out here,” defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward said. “He sees what Devonnsha does out there, so that’s what he wants to do.
“He’s been impressive, and there isn’t much of a dropoff when D-Max goes out of the game when he’s in his position.”
With two seasons of eligibility remaining after this year, Wiggles knows he has time to take on a bigger role. But he called learning from Maxwell the “chance of a lifetime,” and he’s just trying to be a sponge for the fifth-year senior’s knowledge as long as he can.
“Many people don’t get that, but for me it’s been great because I’ve been picking up moves off him and just tweaking them, making them my own moves,” he said. “We basically learn off each other; some stuff that I don’t know, he teaches me, and some stuff he don’t know, I teach him, so he’s been like a big-brother-type mentor-slash-football teammate to me.
“It’s been a blessing to have him as one of my teammates, be able to look and see what stuff he is doing and go out and try to do the same thing but in my own way. I don’t want to be Devonnsha, but I want to be a little bit like him.”
Wiggles’ blocked punt against North Alabama — when he threw a blocker into the punter — directly led to a Ty Boeck touchdown. His most productive statistical game probably came against the same Big Ten program he was once courted by, with Wiggles totaling three tackles on Sept. 22 at Illinois.
The Mocs bounced back from that 31-0 loss with a 24-16 comeback win at SoCon rival East Tennessee State on Oct. 1 ahead of last week’s open date. UTC (4-1, 2-0) is ranked ninth by Football Championship Subdivision coaches and 10th in the Stats Perform Top 25 heading into Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. game against Virginia Military Institute (1-4, 0-2) at Finley Stadium.
Wiggles is having fun, and he’s content with how his process ultimately played out — even if there were anxious moments at times.
“This year has been great,” he said. “It’s been one of my best years here so far, just physically and mentally. We’re on the verge of trying to finish this thing strong, so we’re trying to keep rolling.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.