A year ago, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team hardly broke a sweat while blasting Samford 48-14 in the Mocs’ home finale.
The Bulldogs finished 4-7, losing four of their last five games, and were 2-6 in the Southern Conference. The Mocs will face a much better Bulldogs bunch Saturday at Seibert Stadium in Birmingham.
Samford (5-3, 3-3) has won three of its last four games, including a 52-24 rout of Western Carolina last week, and its only losses were to the league’s big three: No. 3 Appalachian State, No. 4 Georgia Southern and No. 9 Wofford.
Samford coach Pat Sullivan said he already was planning to make some significant changes in his program before the loss to UTC, a loss he described Tuesday as “probably the poorest game that we played overall since I’ve been here.”
The biggest changes were to his offensive staff. Offensive coordinator Steve Brickey was let go and Sullivan brought in Rhett Lashlee, who was an offensive graduate assistant at Auburn for two years, working under Gus Malzahn in the Tigers’ fast-paced system.