JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Rusty Wright needed four years, but it appears he has finally built a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team that's a spitting image of himself.
Having spent more than 20 years as an assistant coach, including two stints at UTC, Wright finally got the head coaching job at his alma mater prior to the 2019 season.
Have things been perfect? Of course not.
There was probably a better way to have handled his second season leading the Mocs, when the Southern Conference schedule was pushed from fall 2020 to spring 2021 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and UTC opted out with games still on the schedule. Last fall's 6-5 record also left a bitter taste for the Mocs, who were the preseason pick to win the SoCon but fell short of that goal and missed the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the fifth straight time.
But Wright kept recruiting. And building. And working.
In the latter case, the same could be said for the Mocs in Saturday's game at rival East Tennessee State. UTC's first half wasn't impressive in any phase — actually, it was just bad _ but the team that walked into the William B. Greene Stadium visitors' locker room at halftime wasn't the one that came out.
The issues that led to the Mocs trailing 13-0 at the break had been just little things, but precision is so important against good, talented teams. UTC's defense was positioned correctly on the Buccaneers' first touchdown, but Bryson Irby bounced around a couple of would-be tacklers and rushed for a 36-yard score. UTC receivers dropped passes, the special teams unit had two bad snaps — one cost the Mocs three points on a potential field-goal attempt — and the offensive line failed to create any holes for the running backs, whose 16 carries netted just 31 yards, including 16 on one Gino Appleberry run.
"We knew we made some key mistakes that let them get some big plays in the first half, especially defensively," said team captain and linebacker Ty Boeck, who had seven tackles. "We didn't have to make any adjustments; we just had to do what we were coached to do. We did a great job of that in the second half, and you saw the results."
Suddenly those issues from the first half weren't issues in the second.
Appleberry lost a third-quarter fumble, but the Mocs kept playing. Their offense moved the ball through the air and on the ground, with their young receivers making play after play after play, providing reliable targets for quarterback Preston Hutchinson and giving star running back Ailym Ford and Hutchinson room to run. Their defense shut the Bucs down, limiting them to 44 yards on 24 second-half plays.
"Honestly, we're not all about stats," Ford said. "We're all about finding a way to win a game. If we're not good at running the ball, we're going to find a way to open it up in the pass game, and I'm going to block as hard as I can so that we can get the ball downfield."
The result was a fourth quarter in which UTC outscored the Bucs 21-3, and a 24-16 win that seemed improbable just a half earlier. The Mocs (4-1, 2-0) are ranked 10th by FCS coaches and 12th in the Stats Perform Top 25 with an open date this week, which will allow them to prepare for the stretch of six SoCon games that completes their regular-season schedule. They return to competition Oct. 15 against Virginia Military Institute (1-3, 0-1) at Finley Stadium.
"It's just our maturity," said Hutchinson, who finished with 248 total yards and a touchdown pass. "Coach Wright says that whether we go up or down, you just have to go forward and deal with the next play, and we did a good job of that. Gino didn't let that fumble affect him at all; he kept his chin up, and I felt like we did that throughout all our mistakes."
That perseverance and this roster are reflections of the coach leading the program. So many of the current Mocs — including Boeck, Ford and Hutchinson — were overlooked before joining UTC, written off at their previous college stops or overlooked as prospects for not quite matching the prototype of their position coming out of high school. They've landed in Chattanooga, and they're battling and learning with each opportunity, each practice, each game they get.
"I'm fired up for those young men because they never quit playing. They never stopped playing," Wright said. "They just kept digging and kept digging, and we found a way to go win a football game. This group just found a way; I'm learning with them, too. They're having to learn how to go win, and they just kept playing."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.