Moving the ball through the air hasn’t been too much trouble for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football program in its past three meetings with Western Carolina.
That’s not how the Mocs would prefer to play, though, and the one-dimensional approach has been a far cry from the “take what the defense gives you” mentality of the team during seventh-year head coach Rusty Wright’s tenure.
And despite quarterbacks Preston Hutchinson, Chase Artopoeus and Luke Schomburg throwing for a combined 1,036 yards in the past three games against the Catamounts, the Mocs have lost three straight in the series and have struggled to run the ball, with those UTC teams rushing for averages of 108.3 yards per game and 3.0 yards per carry.
While those teams may have morphed into passing offenses based on the personnel, the 2025 Mocs are still led by their rushing attack. So to be successful when UTC and Western Carolina meet again in a key Southern Conference game at 4 p.m. Saturday at Finley Stadium, the Mocs (4-4, 3-1) are going to have to run the ball effectively — and they’re going to need to lean on their offensive line to do so.
“We’ve got to play better against them,” UTC offensive line coach Kevin Revis said of the Catamounts (5-3, 4-0). “As far as this group, I am very confident in this group, but it’s going to be a challenge. They’ll make it tough on you to run it; I mean, that’s what we like to do, so teams will try to make it tough on you. But I do feel good about our group. It’ll be a challenge, and our guys understand that and they are ready for it.
“But we don’t care if we’ve got to throw it, if we’ve got to run it, they don’t care how it happens. But if we want to run it, we better be able to run it, and that’s our mindset. It doesn’t really matter what we’re doing as long as we’re scoring one more point than the other team. Let’s see how our guys respond.”
With the regular season entering its final month, the Mocs have averaged 207.1 rushing yards per game and 5.45 per carry with 17 touchdown runs. They have also averaged 176.6 passing yards per game and 13.08 per completion with 12 touchdown passes.
The Mocs did not start the season off as a balanced unit, but they’re slowly morphing into one. UTC has rushed for 200-plus yards in four of its eight games and has thrown for at least 200 yards in three, but the offense has been effective when it has leaned on the ground game to open up opportunities for quarterback Camden Orth and a versatile group of receivers with multiple players who have had big games this year.
When the Mocs haven’t been able to run the ball, the offense has struggled to generate points. They’re 3-1 in those games with 200-plus rushing yards, and they were just 24 yards short of 200 in the comeback win against East Tennessee State, when UTC’s fourth-quarter deficit mandated a different approach late.
“Everybody’s understanding their role,” Wright said. “We’ve figured out what everybody can do and try to maximize them to a certain degree. We’ve worked hard at some things to try and do that in the last month and a half, but everybody’s got a specific duty or role, and (offensive coordinator Joe Pizzo) and those guys are doing a nice job of trying to put those guys in situations where they can be successful to go play that way.
“When you take one guy away, now this other guy goes and plays. If people are going to let us do things, we’re going to try and do them.”
It’s quite simple when it comes down to it.
The Catamounts are led by an All-America-caliber quarterback in Taron Dickens, who in five games for Western Carolina (all wins) has thrown for 1,976 yards and 22 touchdowns. With a young, developing UTC defense that features 11 freshmen and sophomores in this week’s two-deep chart, the Mocs are going to need to control the tempo of the game, meaning they’re going to need to be able to effectively run the ball and try to avoid a shootout with the Catamounts, who in their current three-game winning streak in the series have outscored the Mocs by just nine points (112-103).
The calendar flips to November this weekend, and UTC will start the year’s 11th month still in the SoCon title hunt, with only the Catamounts and Mercer (6-1, 5-0) in front of the Mocs in the league standings. Whether they supplant Western Carolina by Saturday evening will depend on how things went for the guys up front for UTC — and the ones running behind them.
“We can’t take them lightly,” UTC senior offensive lineman Tyrell Ragland said. “They’re a good team, but we’re a good team as well. We’ve got to go play with confidence, because when we go in and play with confidence, we can’t be stopped. It’s got to the point in the season where you’ve got to pick your battles; either you go stop the run or you’re going to stop the pass, but either way, up front we’ve got to go get the job done. It’s about paying attention to the details, watching film.
“Before I think we were relying on one part or one position to make plays, but now the receivers are making plays, the running back room is playing well, and you’ve got to pick your battles.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.