Team captain Ty Boeck and others in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football program were keenly aware that the Mocs were not considered the favorites heading into Saturday's game against Mercer at Finley Stadium, a key Southern Conference matchup between teams high in the national rankings.
Oddsmakers listed the Mocs as slight underdogs, despite being at home and ranked higher at eighth in the Football Championship Subdivision coaches poll and 10th in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25, with the Bears 11th in both. After the game, UTC players admitted they felt some disrespect about the spread.
"Yeah, we've got a lot of group chats, and every time we saw somebody picked them to win, we set them in (the group chat)," said Boeck, a senior linebacker from Soddy-Daisy. "It definitely gave us some extra motivation."
The Mocs already had plenty of that going against a league rival that had become a thorn in their side in recent seasons, with the Bears beating UTC twice last year and in four of the past five series meetings heading into Saturday. So for a multitude of reasons, the Mocs felt like they owed Mercer one.
And they paid in full.
This time it wasn't UTC giving the Bears opportunities to win by benching all of its top players (spring 2021) or turning the ball over four times and missing three kicks (fall 2021). This is a new year, and this time it was the Bears who caved, with the Mocs forcing six turnovers while playing largely mistake-free football in a 41-21 humbling at Finley Stadium.
Mercer (6-2, 4-1) struggled from the jump as UTC's Alec Boruff forced a fumble on the opening kickoff that was recovered by teammate Zay Brown deep in Bears territory. UTC (6-1, 4-0) turned that into an Aaron Sears field goal, and on the next Mercer possession, UTC disguised a coverage and Kam Brown picked off the pass and sprinted 53 yards for a score. Three minutes and five seconds into the game, the Mocs led 10-0.
The lead grew to 24-0 before the Bears rallied to head into halftime down 27-14.
"They had never played from behind this year, except for at Auburn," UTC coach Rusty Wright said. "I thought the defensive staff did a great job defending them, and I knew if we could get up a score or two on them, they would have a hard time. We just kept playing football on offense.
"You've just got to keep playing. There was a lot of football left for us to play, and that's one thing those guys did a really good job of — they kept playing."
So much has been made of how different the 2021 and 2022 seasons have gone for the Mocs — who were picked as SoCon title favorites in both cases but came up short last fall — yet there's no question how different the offense is. Last season, the Mocs were 0-4 in games in which they gave up 20 or more points, but on Saturday the UTC offense scored four touchdowns and got a pair of field goals from Sears.
Senior quarterback Preston Hutchinson took care of the ball, not turning it over and throwing for 291 yards and three touchdowns. He dropped a perfectly placed pass down the middle to Jamoi Mayes for a 34-yard score as the Mocs took a 17-0 lead, then found Sam Phillips and Jay Gibson for scores to give him 11 touchdown passes this season.
Ailym Ford, whose 10-yard score early in the second quarter made it 24-0, rushed for 123 yards and became the fifth Moc to go over 3,000 career rushing yards, and Mayes finished with 121 yards on eight catches, both career highs.
"We've taken so many steps as an offense," offensive lineman McClendon Curtis said. "We used to struggle to put up points. Now if the run isn't working like it should, we can throw it. We have alternatives, and we're going to keep getting better. The defense sees that, and in the past they would tense up, but now they know we've got them. If we mess up, they get us.
"They've loaned us a lot of money, and we've got a lot of payback to do for them."
This payback win clinched nothing but a good night for the Mocs. They go to Furman (6-2, 4-1) next Saturday before visiting The Citadel (2-5, 2-3) on Nov. 5, then return home to battle current SoCon co-leader and 15th-ranked Samford (6-1, 4-0) on Nov. 12 before ending the season the following week at Western Carolina (3-5, 1-4).
But it had been seven years since a ranked UTC team beat a ranked opponent during the regular season -- the Mocs were No. 8 by Stats and No. 9 by coaches when they won 31-23 against No. 20/21 The Citadel on Nov. 14, 2015 at Finley to clinch a SoCon title -- and this win made a statement.
"We've really grown into a complete team this year," Boeck said. "We're definitely going to have to continue to improve that with some tough opponents coming up, but this game was a test, and having them ranked highly up there with us and us being able to win the way we did will give us a confidence boost going forward."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.