Maybe some — not all — members of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team had a different vision of how the first few weeks of the 2024 season would turn out.
It’s likely none of them really, truly expected to beat Tennessee in the opener, but there was no real reason why anyone should have batted an eyelash if the Mocs expressed confidence in their ability to defeat both Georgia State and Mercer. Instead, they lost all three of those games — the latter two by one-score margins — and needed time to regroup and refocus.
That was one break a challenging early schedule did offer to UTC, which began the season ranked in the top 10 of both Football Championship Subdivision polls but is currently down to the “receiving votes” category. The Mocs’ 10-3 loss to Mercer on Sept. 14 in their home and Southern Conference opener was followed by an open date, one final Saturday off in the regular season before nine in a row with games.
“I think it gave us the wake-up call that we needed,” defensive tackle EJ Thomas said this week. “You go into the season, everyone thinks they’re woke at the beginning of the season, but our coaches always say that everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth, and we got hit in the mouth early this year, and it is all about how we respond at the bottom right now.
“We have nothing to lose, everything to gain.”