Befitting an athletic director whose football team had just won its homecoming game 60-36, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga AD Mark Wharton was exiting Finley Stadium with a big grin early Saturday evening when a newspaper reporter asked him if he wouldn’t like all homecoming games to end this way.
Before Wharton could answer, his wife Angela smiled wide and replied, “This is the way you wish every game would end.”
And maybe one day they all will for first-year Mocs coach Rusty Wright, who’s also a UTC alumnus, graduating class of 1996.
But the future wasn’t really on Wright’s mind when he met with his team a couple of hours prior to its Southern Conference opener against Western Carolina University. Instead, he wrote on a chalkboard that the team had to get to 1-0 in the SoCon.
Afterward, he said, “We did, and that’s a credit to these kids.”
Mark WiedmerIn truth, after facing what’s been ranked as the second-toughest schedule in the entire Football Championship Subdivision, the Mocs are now 2-3, having won their opener over Eastern Illinois before falling at Jacksonville State, at Tennessee and to FCS No. 2 James Madison in succession.
Make no mistake. Western Carolina, now 1-3 overall and 0-2 in the conference, is no Jax State or James Madison or Tennessee. The Catamounts have some first-class talent on offense. At least UTC coaches surely hope they do, because the Mocs’ defense gave up 497 total yards to them.
But WCU’s defense was overmatched from the start, giving up 589 total yards and six rushing touchdowns to UTC, including 195 rushing yards and two scores from freshman running back Ailym Ford, whose rushing yards on 30 carries were only 7 yards shy of the single-game freshman rushing mark of James Roberts, who gained 202 yards against East Tennessee State in 1989.
“His effort is crazy,” freshman offensive lineman Colin Truett said of Ford. “You could tell in fall camp. He’s always out there early. He and I come in to watch film on Sunday. It all adds up.”
Added Ford: “It’s fun to see my teammates happy. We knew we had this in us.”
Exactly what these Mocs have in them from this point forward should begin to reveal itself soon. Gone are the games that probably couldn’t be won, no matter how well UTC played. In their place are SoCon foes that will probably be favored against UTC – especially Furman and The Citadel – but also opponents the Mocs can compete against on a somewhat level playing field.
Yet with senior quarterback Nick Tiano becoming more imposing – 161 passing yards and one touchdown pass, plus 49 rushing yards against WCU – and a ground game that churned out 400 yards against the Catamounts, it’s also fair to believe the Mocs’ best days are ahead of them. Especially after getting a much-needed open date following next Saturday’s league game at Mercer.
Or as UTC senior defensive back Aaron Floyd noted after almost scoring on a late interception: “I think we (sent a message) to the whole Southern Conference.”
They may have sent a message to Western Carolina that they were the better conditioned team merely by the midnight blue jerseys and pants they wore. The temperature rising into the 90s, the air heavy, that uniform would have appeared to pull in the heat rather than rebuff it.
But it was the Catamounts who appeared to wilt.
Said Truett of UTC’s attire: “You’ve got to look good to play good.”
And they did look good excepting a few missteps in the kicking game. Beyond that, Ford certainly sent a message that he can be as good as any running back in the league, even though he’ll surely miss fellow back Elijah Ibitokun-Hanks if the injury that cut short his phenomenal game against the Catamounts (125 yards and two touchdowns on just 10 carries) doesn’t quickly heal.
That comes as no surprise to Floyd, however.
Early in preseason camp, as Ford was telling anyone who would listen that he’d be happy just to contribute on special teams, Floyd tackled him one day in practice.
“He bent my facemask,” Floyd said. “He’s going to be special here for a long time.”
And if Saturday’s rout of the Catamounts be any indication, when Ford’s special, the Mocs are pretty good as well.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.