The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s home opener and first win of the season wasn’t a perfect game, although the 63-0 result over Stetson may suggest it was a pretty good “Chattanooga Saturday night” at Finley Stadium.
What it did, though, was offer up a blueprint about how this Mocs team, still a work in progress, could be successful this season.
UTC rushed for 445 yards, the sixth-highest single-game total in program history and the most this century for the Mocs. They averaged 8.1 yards per carry, which set a program record, and it came on 55 attempts as they threw the ball just 14 times (with seven completions).
Three running backs (Justus Durant, Journey Wyche and Ryan Ingram) rushed for at least 94 yards, with Durant and Wyche both going over the 100-yard mark. So did quarterback Camden Orth, giving the program three 100-yard rushers in a single game for the first time since 1978.
It makes sense the Mocs (1-2) would lean on the ground game early in the season after their leading returning receiver from last season (A.J. Little) had three career catches in two seasons. Markell Quick, a junior transfer from North Carolina Central, has proven to be a solid addition, leading the team in catches and receiving yards, but he didn’t arrive on campus until the summer. Northern Colorado transfer Jamarii Robinson has been successful in college, but he didn’t play in 2024, so there was going to be some rust that needed to be knocked off.
The same was true behind center for Bowling Green graduate transfer Orth, a seventh-year college player who didn’t play last season.
Meanwhile, Ingram came to UTC with more than 2,000 career rushing yards after five years at Wofford. Durant, in his second season with the Mocs, scored five touchdowns last year and is 217 rushing yards from 2,000 in a collegiate career that started with two seasons at Shorter, an NCAA Division II program. Wyche, a sophomore, has been banged up a lot during his time at UTC, but his potential has shown in flashes such as his 78-yard run for final touchdown Saturday night.
“If we do things correctly, and people line up how they’re supposed to, and we block like we’re supposed to, we’ve got a chance to have games like that,” UTC coach Rusty Wright said. “We’ve got backs that can go do things, but we misidentify fronts and don’t work to the right people, get hit in the backfield, and we can’t do that.
“I hope this gives them confidence that we can run the football. That’s why the last quarter we decided to hand it off every time, and it doesn’t matter if it’s an old guy or a young guy out there blocking. We’re going to get it figured out and we’re going to see if we can move some people and do some things, and to their credit, they did.”
UTC averaged 3.2 yards per carry on 37 attempts in the season-opening 45-10 loss at Memphis, and it was just 0.9 per carry on 28 rushes in the 45-17 defeat at Tennessee Tech a week later, with the Mocs playing from behind early both times. They passed 19 times against Memphis and 45 times against Tennessee Tech.
Leading 21-0 after Saturday’s first quarter against the Hatters (1-2) obviously made it easier for the play calling to lean toward the run this time. The Mocs ran the ball 15 times in the first quarter, but they also threw half of their passes for the entire game during that period.
The offense is still developing. Along with Quick and Robinson, Little, fellow sophomore Josh Williams and redshirt freshman Taylor Crumedy — who caught the first touchdown pass of his collegiate career Saturday — should improve throughout the course of the season, and the passing game will have a chance to be much improved with Orth and his receivers building more chemistry each week.
It will have to happen against a schedule that gets no easier. The Mocs face Tarleton State (4-0), the nation’s No. 3 team in both FCS polls listed by the NCAA, at 7 p.m. Eastern on Saturday in Stephenville, Texas, before moving into their eight-game Southern Conference slate.
If the Stetson game is indication, though, UTC’s offense may have something it can hang its collective hat on for the time being.
“We’re going to take this as a confidence booster, and we’re going to come in next week and have a great week of practice,” Durant said. “Then we’ll fly out to Texas and play the best game and give ourselves the best shot that we can.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.