While he was a prep standout at nearby Soddy-Daisy, Ty Boeck watched as the standard for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga became qualifying for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The Mocs did that each season from 2014-16, Boeck's first three years of high school.
That standard hasn't been met since Boeck arrived at UTC, the most disappointing of those failures coming last year when the preseason Southern Conference favorites went 6-5, with the losses by a combined 25 points, including defeats in the final two games of the season by a combined seven points.
Boeck, a 6-foot-1, 229-pound linebacker, saw the dejected faces of the seniors after that final game last November, a 24-21 home loss to The Citadel that ended the Mocs' slim playoff hopes. That's below the standard, and it's something that Boeck doesn't want to experience in his final year at UTC.
"I'm doing my best to enjoy every day, try to get the most out of each day, have a positive attitude," he said. "I'm trying to make this last season last as long as I can.
"Chattanooga has a high standard that was set by the guys before, so I'm trying to get back to the tradition of winning in Chattanooga. It's what we want."
The 15 practices that define preseason camp are usually the worst for a player, as the full-pads work in sometimes impossibly hot temperatures lead to raised emotions and, eventually, a lack of focus on the details. With this his fifth year of college, Boeck may just be more wise as to what to expect, or maybe it's simply in line with his new mentality of enjoying each aspect of his final season.
"This camp has felt a lot different than the others, but I do feel this team is really bought in and really focused," he said. "Everybody's wanting to achieve the same goal."
That goal is to win the SoCon and move on to the playoffs, two notable holes in Boeck's UTC career, which has plenty of individual accomplishments.
He has been an All-SoCon selection each of the past three seasons, including on the first team last year, when he was the league's player of the month for September. He has been the SoCon's defensive player of the week three times in his career, and he has been honored as the national defensive player of the week. He has two seasons of at least 90 tackles and will likely be in UTC's top 10 for stops by the end of his career. He has a pair of interceptions, with the second coming against Mercer last year as he returned the ball 85 yards before being stopped just short of the end zone.
Defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward calls him the quarterback of the defense, which makes sense because you need a quarterback to be calm in the face of the storm. If that doesn't describe Boeck, nothing does.
"Ty understands the system," Ward said. "He knows all the calls and how to get the (defensive) front lined up, and that's the biggest part. If we get lined up, we've got a chance, and Ty is learning the system very well. We don't do a lot; we have some adjustments that we have to make based on information, and he does a great job of it."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.