The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s football game against Virginia Military Institute, which was scheduled for Feb. 20 at Finley Stadium as the opener to UTC’s eight-game Southern Conference schedule for the spring semester, has been postponed.
A makeup date was not announced.
UTC and the SoCon announced the postponement Wednesday as the result of “COVID-19 issues” for the Mocs, and the Times Free Press has previously reported the potential for the early portion of the team’s schedule being altered. The spring semester schedule itself is the result of the SoCon and other Football Championship Subdivision leagues postponing most competition from this past fall due to the pandemic, with the Mocs playing one game at Western Kentucky.
The Mocs initially planned to return to campus Jan. 16 to begin preparing for the SoCon season, but there were members of the team unable to return on time due to being in quarantine at their homes. Once everyone had returned, there was more quarantining to be done, with multiple position groups and a coach affected.
On top of that, the exit early last month of Chris Malone has left the team without an offensive line coach. When asked recently about the timeline for a replacement, a source within the athletic department said it would happen “no time soon.” The Mocs could go through the spring season without making a hire or a coach holding that title, instead taking a committee approach; current tight ends coach Jacob Huesman, the former standout Mocs quarterback, was seen running the position group at a recent practice.