Fresh off a big win last Saturday, East Tennessee State quarterback Austin Herink and his teammates referred to the team motto.
“So what, now what?”
The “so what” was the Buccaneers’ 17-14 home win over the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, making ETSU one of two teams undefeated in Southern Conference play and the first-place team with a 3-0 mark.
The “now what” is how the Bucs will deal with that season start and the attention they’ve received. They moved right outside the Top 25 in both major Football Championship Subdivision polls – to 26th in the coaches’ rankings and 27th in the media list – heading into this week’s homecoming game against Gardner-Webb.
Saturday night was a pretty cool moment for a team picked eighth in both SoCon preseason polls.
“We saw the ranking at the beginning of the year, but that’s just the media,” defensive end and SoCon defensive player of the week Nasir Player said after the win over UTC. “We don’t really pay attention to what they have to say. We know what we had going on around here, so this is the expectation. It’s good to be in first; now we have to prepare to stay in first.”
The Bucs won with a relentless pass rush that produced five sacks, 12 quarterback hurries, 12 tackles for loss and three UTC turnovers. Two of those takeaways led to 10 ETSU first-half points, which ultimately were the difference as the Bucs didn’t score after a J.J. Jerman field goal with 3:58 to play in the first half put them up 17-0.
Herink, making his first start of the season after losing his job in the offseason, completed only 11 of his 25 throws but burned the Mocs on a 54-yard screen pass to Quay Holmes for a score and had an 18-yard scamper on third-and-3 in the fourth quarter with the Bucs trying to hold onto the ball and the lead.
“We’ve got to go play next week,” the former Cleveland High School quarterback said Saturday night. “We’re going to enjoy the win, but we’ve got a lot of work to do starting tomorrow.”
Road success
ETSU and Furman had home wins Saturday, but away teams have had success in the league this season – which isn’t an anomaly in the SoCon.
Mercer’s 48-38 win over Virginia Military Institute pushed the league’s record to 5-7 in conference road games. The Bears are 2-0 away from Macon, also having won at Samford. ETSU, UTC and The Citadel also have SoCon wins away from home.
SoCon teams went 18-18 away from home in the league last season, an improvement from 14-21 in 2016.
Eight of the teams have played at least one SoCon game away from home this season. The ninth, Wofford, is 2-0 at home against league competition but will play its first game on the road Saturday at UTC.
Players of the week
Player’s six-tackle, three-sack performance earned him the defensive honor. He also had two forced fumbles and three quarterback hurries against the Mocs.
Western Carolina’s Tyrie Adams had 424 passing yards and 48 rushing yards in the Catamounts’ 44-38 loss to Furman to earn the offensive honor, while Furman’s Dejuan Bell had a 97-yard kickoff return to receive the special teams honor.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.