Whether it’s a larger chip on his shoulder, more opportunities in the passing game or just the natural progression of an athlete, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga redshirt junior Sam Phillips is not the same receiver this year he was in seasons past.
Through UTC’s first five games, Phillips leads the Football Championship Subdivision and is sixth in all of NCAA Division I with 118.0 receiving yards per game — he averaged 60.1 per game for the entire 2022 season and 48.0 last year — including a career-high 195 receiving yards on eight catches during the Sept. 7 loss at Georgia State, a Football Bowl Subdivision program. With his 30 catches this year having compiled 590 yards, he’s already just 72 yards away from setting his career high for a season.
“It’s good,” Phillips said of his start. “I mean, I feel like there’s still more to come. It’s not really all the work I put in, it’s paying off — we’re in the halfway point of the season, so I still have half the season left, so I’m not really trying to focus on how many yards I’ve got. I don’t want to focus on that and get my mind off track.”
What’s led to his hot start? Well, according to his teammates and coaches, the growth for the 5-foot-9, 185-pounder from Cartersville, Georgia, happened long before the season began.
“Coach (Rusty) Wright always talks about it: It always starts in practice,” receivers coach Ricky Spradling said. “I think the kid shows up every day to try to compete and make his skill set better.
“On top of that, I think he’s a competitor that’s got a chip on his shoulder right now. He’s seen guys get production in the past and all those accolades, and he’s kept quiet and he’s stayed humble and he’s kept his nose down. But I think part of it, and he will never tell you this, but I think the kid’s got a little bit of a chip on his shoulder right now and that’s why he’s kind of competing so well out there and making plays that we need him to make.”
Wright said part of that comes with having competent quarterback play. Chase Artopoeus, who in 15 career games with the Mocs has thrown for 3,981 yards and 27 touchdowns, has gotten comfortable with Phillips and Javin Whatley, another redshirt junior. Artopoeus said that from the moment he arrived in January 2023 as a transfer from UCLA, he believed this sort of production was possible.
That was demonstrated last year, when the top trio of UTC receivers included Jamoi Mayes, who transferred to Cincinnati for his senior season. Mayes led the team in catches (62) and receiving yards (1,037), with Whatley second in yards (977 on 55 catches) and Phillips second in catches (60 for 624 yards).
“Sam’s a really good player,” Artopoeus said, “and truth be told when I first got here, he was kind of one of the premier guys on the team, and I was just really expecting for him to be the guy last year and just naturally how defenses played us, I think that Jamoi and Nunu got some better looks than Sam.
“I think Sam’s a really good team guy; I never heard one thing about him when he wasn’t getting the ball enough last year or anything like that, so to see him have this success, it’s not surprising by any means. It’s actually kind of relieving to know that I’m getting out the ball enough for him to go out there and make the plays that he does.”
That unselfishness has helped Phillips continue to grow as a player.
After being a Freshman All-American in 2022 and getting more attention from defenses last year, there was a natural adjustment that allowed Mayes and Whatley to get more open. Now, with Mayes gone (he has 12 catches and a touchdown this season for the Big 12’s Bearcats), the focus has shifted to Phillips and Whatley, but it hasn’t kept them from making plays. Phillips said he knew Mayes leaving meant he and Whatley were going to have to step up, and Whatley has been able to get going more recently with 203 yards and three touchdowns in the past two games.
The most noticeable improvement for Phillips is his speed, shown by his five catches of 30 yards or more after totaling one last season. He made a big impression when he ran away from the Georgia State defense on an 84-yard catch-and-run touchdown, but he also had a 34-yard reception in that game and a 78-yard touchdown reception in the win against Portland State two weeks ago.
He also has catches of 40 and 38 yards in Southern Conference play, which continues for the Mocs (2-3, 1-1) — who are No. 23 in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 poll after last week’s win at East Tennessee State University — when they visit reigning league champion Furman (2-3, 1-0) at 2 p.m. Saturday in Greenville, South Carolina. The Paladins hold a 33-21 lead in the all-time series and are on a three-game winning streak against the Mocs that included two victories last year, when the teams met late in the regular season and again in the second round of the FCS playoffs.
“It’s deceptively fast when you see him run,” Spradling said of Phillips. “You see our guys that have got explosiveness and twitch that you can see, but then when you check our Catapult (athletic metrics data), and we’ve got the numbers and we check it every day, this man’s topping out faster than everybody, but it just doesn’t look that way when he is running.
“I don’t know if it’s just how he moves, but when he moves, it’s going as fast as everybody else. I remember people used to talk about how Randy Moss used to be able to do that and change speeds without ever giving body mannerisms away, and I think that’s what that kid does. But he can run just as fast as all of them.”
And despite the Mocs seeing it every day in practice, Phillips still has found a way to surprise his teammates.
“I told Sam after the Georgia State game when he scored that I did not know he could run like that,” linebacker Kam Brown said. “He burned the whole defense, got us a touchdown, did it again against Portland State, did it again against ETSU, and hopefully he can do it again this week.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.