Saturday at noon, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team embarks on an unprecedented spring football season, consisting of at least seven games against Southern Conference competition. Sixteen teams will qualify for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, which will begin on Apr. 24.
Do the Mocs have what it takes to be one of them?
Today, we examine three reasons why the Mocs could compete for the SoCon championship and/or an at-large bid to the FCS playoffs, and three reasons why they still might be a year away:
REASONS THE MOCS WILL MAKE IT
Defense: If there was one major takeaway from the Mocs’ 13-10 loss at Football Bowl Subdivision Western Kentucky, it was that UTC’s defense was legit. The 13 points at the time was the fewest the Hilltoppers had scored to that point in the season, and the 254 yards of total offense was WKU’s third-fewest total all year. With the belief that the FBS program has better athletes than most any FCS program UTC will face, there’s reason to believe that the Mocs will be relying on defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward’s group to do most of the heavy lifting.