Harrison Bey-Buie let his father in on how Saturday night would go before it started.
“I told my dad I was going to get in the end zone today, the first game back,” the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga running back said. “So it was good that I made that happen.”
It took him three carries.
Bey-Buie, a graduate transfer who had been sidelined by injury the first three games of the season, ran 7 yards for a touchdown with 4:30 left in the first half of the Mocs’ 41-7 win over Wofford. It was the score that gave the hosts a three-touchdown lead in what had been a tie game, and it effectively decided UTC’s Southern Conference opener in front of 7,205 at Finley Stadium.
Nine seconds of game clock later, sophomore defensive back Jaden Nelson jumped a short throw over the middle and returned his interception 26 yards for another touchdown as UTC (2-2) scored the last 34 points of the matchup with the Terriers (2-2, 1-1).
The Mocs leaned on their ground game, running the ball 53 times for 310 yards. Bey-Buie totaled 22 yards on his nine carries, with three of his first four going for 7, 4 and 7 yards on the drive that broke the game open.
After missing most of preseason camp, Bey-Buie was relegated to watching as UTC won its season opener at West Georgia, then dropped back-to-back games against Tennessee Tech and Eastern Kentucky — but the 5-foot-1, 218-pounder said he had “been fighting hard … to come back” and did so just as the Mocs jumped into their eight-game SoCon schedule.
“I felt good,” he said. ” … Just excited to be back and be healthy, help contribute to this win.”
The first contact was the part he had been thinking about.
“My first hit was today, and I was talking to my little brother about it,” Bey-Buie said. “He asked me, ‘How you doing? How you doing?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I ain’t been hit yet.’ So after I got them first couple hits in, then it just went away.”
Waiting is not new to him. The Philadelphia native is in his sixth college season and has played a full slate exactly twice. He started nine games as a freshman at Eastern Illinois in 2021 and was an Ohio Valley Conference all-newcomer honoree, then spent four years at Northern Iowa, where injuries held him to 24 games before he played all 12 last season.
“Last year was really my first year getting back into everything,” he said.
The time away pushed him toward something else. Bey-Buie runs Show Them the Way Academy, which is based in Rock Island, Illinois, and is aimed at players ages 5-18, though he said his focus is mostly on the high school group. His father, Edwin, who served in the Army and moved the family through several schools before Harrison finished his prep career in Bettendorf, Iowa, does most of the work with him.
“A lot of kids out there got the potential to play at the college level, but they’ve got obstacles holding them back,” Bey-Buie said. “Just showing them that as long as you keep fighting every day … I can give them my knowledge of what it’s like.”
Asked who else helps, he mentioned family and a man he identified only as “Mr. Mike.” Asked for Mr. Mike’s last name, he grinned and said, “Mike.”
On the field, his return gave Rusty Wright something he has not had much early in his eighth season as UTC’s head coach: bodies.
“It gives us another option to be able to do some things schematically, formation-wise,” Wright said. “We’re pretty limited just because of the people we have right now. We had four or five running backs. We didn’t always have four and five running backs.”
(READ MORE: UTC coordinator Joe Pizzo losing sleep as injuries reshape offense)
Journey Wyche (5-10, 206), a junior who has spent his entire collegiate career at UTC, ran 13 times for 122 yards against Wofford. Kevin Lalin (5-9, 197), a senior who joined the Mocs this year after playing last season at Catawba, had 16 carries for 110 yards and two scores.
Bey-Buie sees himself as the changeup in that group.
“I feel like we all can do the physical thing, but I feel like I take more pride in being physical and just getting the tough yardage if need be,” he said. “Kev runs the ball hard, Journey runs the ball real hard. So I guess my size, just being the bigger back.”
Quarterback Battle Alberson, who threw seven passes and completed three for 46 yards, was glad to have him.
“He’s just a big strong guy and he runs hard, and it’s always good to have that out there,” Alberson said.
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UTC will face The Citadel (1-2, 0-1) at 2 p.m. Saturday in Charleston, South Carolina. It’s a chance to show whether the Mocs can maintain the momentum they built against Wofford — which beat The Citadel 42-14 on Aug. 29 in the opener for both teams — though Bey-Buie isn’t overly concerned with outside impressions.
“We kind of just stay to ourselves. We know what we’ve got on our team,” he said. “I feel like today probably put a little more notice on what we’re capable of doing. And then once we get some receivers back, too, it’d be a whole other ballgame.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.