The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s 2024 football season kicks off on Aug. 31 at Tennessee, and the Times Free Press is taking a positional look at UTC’s roster.
First up are the quarterbacks.
Who’s gone: Tucker Pope (Walker Valley High School alum left UTC after one season, having not played for the Mocs in 2023 as a sophomore transfer from Tennessee State).
Who’s back: Chase Artopoeus (R-Sr., 6-2, 208; 10 starts, 2,672 passing yards, 20 touchdowns, seven interceptions in 2023); Luke Schomburg (R-So., 6-3, 194; seven games, three starts, 517 passing yards, two touchdowns, three interceptions); Matthew Clemmer (R-Fr., 6-4, 217; one game).
Who’s in: No one.
Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / UTC quarterback Matthew Clemmer practices at Scrappy Moore Field last August.For the Mocs, it’s been a while since the presumed starter at this position in a season opener was the primary starter from a year ago. In fact, it’s happened just once in the past decade (2019 with Nick Tiano), but after missing the final three games last year due to injury, Artopoeus should be back under center against the Volunteers, and there is quality depth with Schomburg as the backup.
How did the Mocs get to this point?
Here’s a timeline with plenty of twists and turns along the way.
2016: After two seasons of backing up Football Championship Subdivision All-American Jacob Huesman, Alejandro Bennifield steps into the starting role as a redshirt junior and guides the Mocs to nine wins and the program’s third straight playoff appearance, throwing for 2,622 yards and 26 touchdowns that season.
2017: After eight seasons as head coach, Russ Huesman leaves for Richmond and is replaced by Tom Arth. Bennifield is the expected starter, but he is ruled ineligible for the first four games of the season due to an NCAA rule, thrusting Tiano, a sophomore transfer from Mississippi State, into the position. Bennifield takes over in the fifth game against Western Carolina but sustains a concussion in the first quarter, bringing Tiano back in. Tiano gets hurt later in that game, though, which paves the way for freshman Cole Copeland to start the final six contests. Copeland throws for more than 300 yards in his first game, and he leads the Mocs to wins over eighth-ranked Samford and rival East Tennessee State down the stretch of a 3-8 season.
2018-19: Arth leaves for Akron after two seasons and is replaced by Rusty Wright ahead of the 2019 campaign. Copeland finished 2017 as the presumed starter, but he is suspended for the 2018 season. Tiano returns to the starting job and throws for 4,952 yards and 29 touchdowns in his final two seasons.
2020-21: There was some expectation at the time that Tiano would turn over the offensive controls to 2019 signee Gio Richardson, a three-star prospect who was once committed to Football Bowl Subdivision member Florida Atlantic, but Richardson left the program after one year to transfer closer to home. That put the position in the hands of two talented yet largely inexperienced players in Drayton Arnold and Copeland, who had worked his way back into school after his suspension in 2018. Copeland would be the better of the two by far and did guide the Mocs to six wins in 2021, but he missed the final game, a 24-21 home loss to The Citadel that cost the Mocs a playoff appearance and led Wright to state “we need to find a quarterback” entering 2022.
2022: Copeland returned, but the Mocs went with Eastern Michigan transfer Preston Hutchinson, a senior who threw for 2,723 yards and 17 scores while guiding the team to seven wins. UTC, though, was one of the first teams left out of the 24-team field for the FCS playoffs.
2023: Copeland and Hutchinson graduated, which led to some uncertainty about the position considering neither Artopoeus (who transferred in after four seasons at UCLA) nor Schomburg had thrown a pass in college. Yet after a shaky first game, Artopoeus put those concerns to rest with wins in seven of his final nine outings before an injury against Furman to conclude the Mocs’ Southern Conference schedule. Schomburg stepped in, wasn’t horrible against Alabama in the regular-season finale, then threw for 200-plus yards in a playoff win at favored Austin Peay before the Mocs’ first postseason since 2016 ended with a loss at No. 7 seed Furman.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.