If the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga can win its homecoming game against Mercer this Saturday afternoon, the Mocs will start a football season 6-0 for the first time since 1968.
Because those Harold Wilkes-coached Mocs won their first seven before losing at Southeastern Conference member Mississippi that year, this team is still a bit shy of producing the school's best start ever.
But as the Mocs reach hump week of their 11-game regular season as the only 5-0 team in the Football Championship Subdivision, coach Russ Huesman continues to be impressed with his eighth UTC squad.
"I like this team," he said during Tuesday's weekly media luncheon. "A lot."
Asked for specifics, he quickly added, "There aren't any highs and lows with this bunch. This is a low-maintenance bunch. They're as steady and focused on play No. 75 as the first play of the game."
It's a long season. But while Big Brother Tennessee just up Interstate 75 has won all five of its games with more highs and lows than a runaway roller coaster, the Mocs have claimed their first five starts without ever trailing, their average margin of victory a preposterous 31.4 points per game.
Yet before anyone thinks Mercer's Bears - 2-2 overall and 1-1 in Southern Conference play - could prove a trap game for UTC, given the distractions of homecoming and the nation's third-ranked Mocs growing a bit too full of themselves, Huesman is determined to paint a decidedly different picture through this week's practices.
"This team beat us last year," he said of that 17-14 loss, the Mocs' lone SoCon defeat since the start of the 2014 season, UTC winning 16 of its last 17 league games. "They took advantage of every mistake we made, and they created most of those mistakes. They were just the better football team that day."
So this isn't a trap game? he was asked.
"This is not a trap game," he said. "This is one of the better teams in the conference. If we're not ready for this one, we don't understand who we're playing."
If you could point to one difference between the UT Vols and the UTC Mocs after five games, it's that Huesman's team has appeared to have a very good understanding of every opponent it has faced. Both conference road games have produced leads of at least 21-0. So have the three home games.
Contrast that with the Vols, who have fallen behind by 10 or more points in four of their five games, and it's easy to see why the Mocs are ranked third in their poll while the Vols are ranked ninth in theirs.
With words any coach would love, UTC sophomore and McCallie School product C.J. Fritz said, "We're just focusing on the next game, keeping an even keel. You don't want to get too caught up in the wins. We just want to keep getting better."
The biggest potential win could come a week from now at The Citadel, which is also 3-0 in the SoCon heading into this week's nonconference game against North Greenville, and also undefeated (4-0) for the season. Wins the next two Saturdays not only would tie the best start in Mocs history but also likely would wrap up a fourth straight SoCon title.
But first there's dangerous Mercer, which not only won last year's game but threw a huge scare into the Mocs two years ago at Finley. And if that's not enough to worry Moc Maniacs, it's homecoming, with all its potential distractions, including for the head coach, who graduated from UTC in 1983.
"My first year here it was pretty cool, because I'd never gotten to come back for homecoming before; I was always working." Huesman said. "But now it's just another game, another game we need to win."
Added Fritz: "We don't get into that. It's cool to see the parade and the pep rally and all. But we're focused on the game. We've just got to keep our goals in mind."
And what might be those goals?
"We feel we're the best team in the country," he said.
They're certainly drawing closer each week to at least being remembered as the best team in UTC history.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.