Mocs remain encouraged despite lopsided loss

AP photo by Charles Rex Arbogast / Illinois running back Chase Brown (2) carries UTC defensive back Josh Battle into the end zone for a touchdown during the first half of Thursday night's game in Champaign, Ill. Illinois won 31-0 as the Mocs lost for the first time in four games to start the season.
AP photo by Charles Rex Arbogast / Illinois running back Chase Brown (2) carries UTC defensive back Josh Battle into the end zone for a touchdown during the first half of Thursday night's game in Champaign, Ill. Illinois won 31-0 as the Mocs lost for the first time in four games to start the season.

It was already going to take a special effort by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team to go into Champaign, Illinois, and pull off an upset on prime-time television against a Big Ten opponent that had more than a week's rest.

But the Mocs, despite entering Thursday's game undefeated and ranked in the top 10 in the Football Championship Subdivision, didn't do much to help themselves against Illinois. Missed assignments on both sides of the ball played a big hand in the 31-0 defeat for UTC (3-1), which was shut out for the first time since losing 45-0 at Tennessee in 2019.

An FCS team losing when it faces a Football Bowl Subdivision program — which has 22 more scholarships by comparison, among other advantages — isn't really surprising. The Fighting Illini (3-1) paid the Mocs $485,000 to play the game for a reason.

What might have surprised some observers is how the Mocs played, or more specifically, how badly they played.

The offensive line and the secondary were areas of concern entering the season, and Thursday they showed why. The bigger Illini defense got to quarterback Preston Hutchinson at will, sacking the senior four times and hurrying him eight others, and he was intercepted twice, doubling the number he'd totaled in the first three games. And when Cole Copeland entered in relief, he got hit the one time he dropped back to pass.

Ailym Ford did finish with 93 yards on the ground, but 71 of those came on two of his 17 carries; of his other 15 rushes, none gained more than 9 yards and only four gained more than 2 yards. Tyron Arnett, the Mocs' lone senior receiver, had 32 yards on three catches, with two of those going for first downs.

"Games like this make you better," offensive lineman McClendon Curtis said. "It tells you what you have to do, and honestly, it tells you that technique is key. Sometimes you can get away with things playing guys who aren't as big as these guys, and you've got to use technique to be able to move them. That's what they showed us tonight."

Defensively, UTC did sack Tommy DeVito three times, with two by Devonnsha Maxwell as he reached 33 for his career. Whenever the front couldn't generate pressure, though, it left the inexperienced secondary in bad spots the Illini senior quarterback was able to exploit at will, with DeVito throwing for 329 yards and three scores in three quarters of work.

"Definitely a great learning experience for the defense as a whole, just allowing us to play against good competition, a very good, talented and sound disciplined team, to show that we need to be sound and discipline ourselves and just show a lot of areas that we can improve on," sophomore defensive back Reuben Lowery said. "Looking at the big picture, this was good for us."

And then there's the preparation. UTC coach Rusty Wright took accountability for the loss, noting he didn't give his staff a chance to properly plan for the game, which was played five days after a 41-14 home win against North Alabama. Wright had previously noted he wanted to see how his team — experienced in some places, young in others — would prepare and respond in the short week he had agreed to, but after the game he obviously had some regrets about that while also being encouraged by some others.

"This is the first time since I've been here, that as bad as we got our behinds whipped tonight, there wasn't a finger pointed, there wasn't a word said about somebody not doing something. That group went out there and kept playing," said Wright, who took over at UTC ahead of the 2019 season. "That hasn't happened since I've been here; there's always been something. I told them I was proud of them."

When the Mocs, ranked ninth by FCS coaches and 10th in the Stats Perform Top 25, return to competition on Saturday, Oct. 1, it will be at East Tennessee State, starting a run of seven Southern Conference games to close the regular season. UTC, the preseason favorite to win the SoCon, is already 1-0 in the conference thanks to a season-opening win against Wofford.

How the Mocs fare against their remaining schedule will determine whether they make the FCS playoffs for the first time since 2016, but Thursday's game can play a part in how they approach the rest of the season.

"We're growing, and we're going to get there, and we're going to be OK. I promise you, we're going to be OK," Wright said. "What it looks like? I don't know. But I love this football team, and I think we have the opportunity to be a good football team, and we've just go to continue what we've been doing, going to work and trying to figure out where to get better.

"We can go win every game on this schedule, we can lose every game left on this schedule, but I think this group is going to go fight and they're going do what they're supposed to do, and we'll figure it out."

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.

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