It's hard to find much fault with the football seasons of the Tennessee Volunteers and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs at the midway mark.
The Vols are 6-0 and ranked No. 3 among Bowl Subdivision programs following last Saturday's frenetic 52-49 win over Alabama inside Neyland Stadium, while the Mocs are 5-1 and ranked No. 8 in the Championship Subdivision. UTC is actually undefeated against FCS competition, with its only loss occurring late last month at No. 18 Illinois.
Yet there is a difference transpiring at the turnstiles, as Tennessee's sudden success appears to be having an impact on Finley Stadium crowds.
"I think it has an effect," UTC athletic director Mark Wharton said Tuesday afternoon. "When we do our scheduling times, whether we play on Thursday or what time we play on Saturdays, we look at Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. There is really nothing we can do. We don't wait for their schedules to go out to schedule ours, because it just doesn't work that way.
"We try to look at all options, but it's inevitable that you're going to have those challenges. Tennessee's resurgence certainly played a huge role the other day."
Tuesday marked the 25-year anniversary of Finley's grand opening, when 22,646 spectators watched the Mocs defeat Tennessee State 28-7. That milestone will be recognized on Saturday, when UTC hosts No. 11 Mercer.
While Tennessee was subduing Nick Saban's Crimson Tide for the first time in 16 seasons in front of a sellout crowd of 101,915, UTC was hammering VMI 41-13, rushing for 299 yards while holding the Keydets to minus-2. The announced attendance of 6,284 for UTC-VMI, which started two hours before the Vols and Tide kicked off on CBS, represents the lowest autumn gathering in Rusty Wright's four seasons as coach.
The Mocs, who played two COVID-adjusted spring games at home in 2021 without fans, expect to house a significantly larger audience this Saturday when the Bears invade for a 1:30 start. Tennessee is hosting UT Martin at noon on the SEC Network.
"I was thoroughly disappointed Saturday in the attendance," Stadium Corp. board chairman Mike Davis said. "Here we have a team fighting and clawing for their conference championship, and I'm going to be really disappointed this Saturday if that happens again with this kind of matchup. I don't know how you compete with the big guys. I really don't.
"I'm just glad I didn't see 100,000 people storm our turf and have to worry about that and getting new goal posts and stuff like that."
CBS announced Tuesday that Tennessee's triumph was the most-watched game of the 2022 college season, averaging 11.56 million viewers and peaking at 16.92 million as Chase McGrath connected on his 40-yard field goal as time expired.
The largest crowd for the Mocs this season was the announced 10,254 for the Homecoming contest on Sept. 17 against North Alabama, a 41-14 victory. That's also the largest crowd of the Wright era, and it took place on the only Saturday in which the Vols were not on television.
KNOXVILLE, TN - October 15, 2022 - Vol fans storm the field after the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, TN. Photo By Andrew Ferguson/Tennessee AthleticsTennessee routed Akron that same evening 63-6, with that mismatch accompanied by ESPN+ and SEC Network+ streaming options.
The average attendance of a UTC game so far this season is 7,887, which tops the 7,482 clip of last season and the 7,767 average of 2019. There is the potential to enhance this year's figure, perhaps significantly, given the magnitude of UTC-Mercer and with the Vols hosting their lone annual FCS foe, but only time will tell whether potential gives way to reality.
"It's hard to compete with those guys," Davis said, "but you're seeing a good event here, and that's what we've got to get our city to understand. It's a great afternoon of entertainment."
Said Wharton: "Hopefully we've done a good job and the community has done a good job in talking about the significance of this weekend's game."
The Wright vision
Finley Stadium executive director Brian Wright received permission Tuesday from the Stadium Corp. board to study the possibility of renovating the Stadium Club area and implementing a rooftop bar.
"It's really about creating more event spaces in the stadium," Wright said. "The Stadium Club is already here. It just needs to be tweaked a bit to fit the times."
Wright added that a rooftop bar would "make for a really cool game day add-on."
Partner power
This is certainly an autumn to remember at Finley Stadium, with the football Mocs in the top-10 and the women's soccer team leading the Southern Conference. Not about to be outdone, the Chattanooga FC has qualified for the NISA playoffs for the first time as a professional franchise and will be hosting a playoff game Sunday, Oct. 30.
"Everything with every one of our partners is clicking," Davis said.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.