The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s offense has been multifaceted this football season, in terms of both personnel as well as success.
The Mocs have proven they can produce on the ground, with five players rushing for at least 90 yards in at least one game through the first two-plus months of the schedule: quarterback Camden Orth and running backs Justus Durant, Ryan Ingram, Solomon Locke and Journey Wyche.
As for Orth, who joined the Mocs this past winter for his seventh year of college football — he spent three at Long Island before three at Bowling Green, although he didn’t play last season — the 6-foot-3, 228-pounder from Gainesville, Florida, came on after a slow start to the season and has eight touchdowns and two interceptions in his past three games. The early struggles in the passing game came with not just a new quarterback but a rebuilt receiver corps, yet Orth’s targets have also come along as four UTC players have gained at least 70 receiving yards in a game and seven have scored, including tight end John McIntyre.
UTC has both a 400-yard rushing performance — Durant, Ingram, Locke, Orth, Wyche and receiver Markell Quick combined for 445 on 55 carries in a 63-0 win against Stetson on Sept. 13 — and a 300-yard passing game, with Orth throwing for 343 in a 42-38 comeback win against East Tennessee State University on Oct. 18.
“One thing I think (offensive coordinator Joe Pizzo) and those guys do a great job of is not being locked into a system, but of a way of playing football a way to play offense,” UTC head coach Rusty Wright said. “Does it make sense? No, of course, and that’s something a lot of coordinators can’t do. A lot of times we’re trying to figure out how they’re going to play us, and when they do, that’s when we get them dialed in. That’s what happened with ETSU in the second half, and then we got them dialed in and they didn’t have an answer.