Seven years have taught Camden Orth a lot about college and football.
But there’s a hope that should the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga senior quarterback win the starting job, that experience will only benefit a new-look Mocs roster.
Orth, a Florida native, has played three seasons at both Long Island University and at Bowling Green, missing his final season at BGSU due to an injury. He’s seen a lot — he started for the Falcons against 2023 national champion Michigan and also has action against West Virginia and Minnesota on his resume — and the 6-foot-3, 228-pound dual threat (who is also ambidextrous) has played in 36 games in his career, with 2,689 yards, 19 passing touchdowns and six more rushing.
“You would hope that nothing spooks him,” UTC head coach Rusty Wright said. “He’s rode on buses to go play games — not necessarily plane flights all the time and all those things — so hopefully not a whole lot bothers him when it comes right down to it, because that’s what we’re going to need. We’re going to get stressed and stressed early in this season and we’re going to have to have some of that.”
UTC has fared well with its previous two quarterback transfers in Preston Hutchinson and Chase Artopoeus, guys who came in and helped lead the Mocs to three consecutive seven-win regular seasons for only the third time since becoming a Division I program 47 years ago (1977-83, 2013-16). Orth comes in to a battle with four-year member Luke Schomburg, who has finished the previous two seasons as the starter and has a completely different skill set, and while it’s early, there is the possibility both quarterbacks are used during the season.
“It could be beneficial,” offensive coordinator Joe Pizzo said. “We’ve got to figure out who we are with all the new guys. That’s the big thing this time of year, figuring out what our strength is going to be — whether we can throw the football around, whether we’ve got to run the football, whether it’s going to be a mix — that’s really what we’re trying to do, and if one’s better than the other at certain things, then maybe we use two.”
Pizzo’s offensive philosophy has always been pretty simple: Figure out who the playmakers are and make sure they touch the ball as much as possible. The system has seemingly morphed from a heavy-run system early in Wright’s tenure to one that for a couple of seasons leaned more into the pass. Then there was last season, where the team tried to run the ball but just wasn’t overly successful, averaging just 3.4 yards per carry despite rushing on 58% of the team’s snaps.
But on top of figuring out how the team is going to play — the Mocs believe they have a set of good skill guys on the roster — the staff is going to figure out who is going to be in charge of getting the ball to those guys. That could be Orth, who despite the longevity of his career and missing the 2024 season, said he never considered hanging his cleats up and moving on with life.
“I’ve learned to take each day as it is,” he said. “You just have to focus on what you’ve got to do today. UTC was an appealing place to spend my last season because I really appreciated the honesty and the transparency that I had with Coach Pizzo coming in and letting me know the situation. I told him I just wanted a chance to compete.
“He said that he’d give me the chance and that’s really all I could ask for.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.
