Ailym Ford was miserable last weekend, when the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga running back had to watch from home with a lower-body injury as the Mocs narrowly lost at Furman.
A week later, UTC returned to Ford’s home state with the preseason All-American on board, and he more than made up for his brief absence, finishing just shy of 200 yards of total offense Saturday in UTC’s 31-21 win over The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Mocs, 11th in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 and ranked 12th by Football Championship Subdivision coaches, improved to 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the Southern Conference, setting up what should be a huge home game with playoff implications next weekend as No. 10 Samford (8-1, 6-0) visits Finley Stadium. Samford is the only remaining undefeated team in SoCon play.
“It was just a terrible feeling, staying at home and watching the game from a distance,” said Ford, who had 130 yards rushing and 67 receiving and ran for two touchdowns in the win. “I felt like I owed it to my team this week — they fought their tails off last week. We deserved this win this week. We worked our tails off and were ready to play.”
But it wasn’t a fast start for UTC on either side of the ball.