Ailym Ford was miserable last weekend, when the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga running back had to watch from home with a lower-body injury as the Mocs narrowly lost at Furman.
A week later, UTC returned to Ford's home state with the preseason All-American on board, and he more than made up for his brief absence, finishing just shy of 200 yards of total offense Saturday in UTC's 31-21 win over The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Mocs, 11th in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 and ranked 12th by Football Championship Subdivision coaches, improved to 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the Southern Conference, setting up what should be a huge home game with playoff implications next weekend as No. 10 Samford (8-1, 6-0) visits Finley Stadium. Samford is the only remaining undefeated team in SoCon play.
"It was just a terrible feeling, staying at home and watching the game from a distance," said Ford, who had 130 yards rushing and 67 receiving and ran for two touchdowns in the win. "I felt like I owed it to my team this week — they fought their tails off last week. We deserved this win this week. We worked our tails off and were ready to play."
But it wasn't a fast start for UTC on either side of the ball.
The Bulldogs (2-7, 2-5) used a 62-yard run by Braden Walker to set up a short touchdown for the game's first points midway through the opening quarter, and the Mocs were able to muster just 6 yards on their first three possessions yet trailed only 7-3 due to a forced fumble that was recovered by defensive back Reuben Lowery and led to an Aaron Sears field goal.
The Mocs' next offensive series ended with Ford's first rushing score, and somehow they led 10-7 at the break despite the offense having just 116 yards.
In the second half, though, UTC totaled 234 yards while averaging just more than 7 per play. Preston Hutchinson got going, throwing for 124 of his 202 passing yards, including 36-yard touchdown to freshman tight end Camden Overton. Ford got his second touchdown and had 91 of his rushing yards, and veteran running back Gino Appleberry got in the end zone for the third time this season.
"We finally started playing football," offensive lineman McClendon Curtis said. "The guys that we have on offense can play really well, but at times we think too much, and when you think too much while trying to play football fast, it's not going to work. We finally did our job.
"We practice this stuff all the time. We don't do too much on offense, so we just had to focus, and I feel in the second half guys just did their job."
Defensively, the Mocs settled in after a slow start as well, limiting the triple-option Bulldogs to 188 yards on the ground, which helped build a 17-point lead and forced the home team to throw — not The Citadel's strong suit.
UTC was able to tee off late, with three sacks on the Bulldogs' final possession coming from Jay Person, Ben Brewton and Lowery. Devonnsha Maxwell also had a sack during the game, giving him 35 in his career and putting him just two behind Davis Tull, the all-time leader in UTC and SoCon history.
"If somebody would have told me they would have 188 yards rushing, I'd give them my paycheck from last month because I knew we'd have a chance to go win the football game," UTC coach Rusty Wright said. "That was the biggest thing: Our kids prepared, our kids and coaches prepared well all week, and you could tell the difference when we went out there that first series on defense, even when they busted the home run that was more on us as coaches than it was on them.
"You can tell how we prepared last week. Our eyes were in the right spot, and we played some pretty good football."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.