With every assertive, powerful run up the middle or out wide, Keon Williams looks less and less like a player the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga can afford to redshirt this season.
If Williams, a freshman running back from Red Bank, is part of the immediate future in the Mocs’ backfield, Bryan Fitzgerald is now officially the past.
Fitzgerald quit the team Wednesday, ending his attempt to return from last season’s foot injury, which required two surgeries. Fitzgerald originally quit in April after the second surgery, but decided this summer to give it another shot.
Mocs coach Russ Huesman said the decision was Fitzgerald’s, though he didn’t mince words about the effort he thought Fitzgerald put into his return.
“He doesn’t want to get treatment, he doesn’t want to get in shape, he doesn’t want to work at it,” Huesman said following Thursday morning’s practice. “I guess he just thought we were going to hand the ball to him on Sept. 4, the first play of the game.