When asked about the differences between playing in the Ivy League and playing in the Southern Conference, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga linebacker Kobe Joseph, a first-year graduate transfer from Harvard, didn’t point to the level of football.
After all, there probably isn’t much of a competitive gap between the Ivys and other top-level programs in the Football Championship Subdivision. One piece of evidence is Joseph’s alma mater winning 38-28 last week at Patriot League member Holy Cross — a result that Joseph predicted — which was nationally ranked fifth by coaches and sixth by media at the time.
Because Ivy League schools, which don’t offer athletic scholarships, don’t participate in the FCS playoffs, such nonconference games in the regular season are the best chance for comparison. And without the chance for Harvard — at 19th in the coaches poll and 21st in the media poll, the Crimson are the only member of the eight-team league currently ranked — and the rest of the Ivys to raise their profile in the postseason, it’s harder for people to be aware of them, much less gauge their quality of play.
With the exception of an one-year exemption during the coronavirus pandemic, Ivy League programs also don’t allow graduate students to play. After four years at Harvard, though, Joseph still had two years of football eligibility remaining, and he was looking for the opportunity to get to what felt “like a higher level,” which is what UTC and the SoCon presented.
He wanted it to feel different, which is what UTC has done.
“I didn’t want to go somewhere worse,” he said. “The SoCon has been definitely competitive — you’ve got some awesome athletes here. It’s been what I wanted it to be: It’s making me better, it’s making everyone better.
“In terms of culture, it’s different. In the Ivy League, they let us do our own thing up there, you had a lot of freedom. Here, they’re making sure you’re doing everything right, and it shows that they’re taking care of their kids and pushing them in the right direction.”
Joseph began the second phase of his college football career with a degree in hand, having studied human development and regenerative biology at one of the top universities in the country. Yet when it comes to football, he constantly refers to “being taken care of” at UTC in a way he wasn’t at his prior stop.
The 6-foot-3 Joseph noted that he struggled to keep his weight up before but said that’s “no issue here.” (Harvard’s 2022 roster listed him at 226 pounds; UTC lists him at 243.)
“I feel like a real scholarship player here,” he said. “We get back to the locker room, and they hand us boxes of food. We have unlimited meal passes, the dining hall is open late, and you can spend your money anywhere else. And if you start losing weight and stuff, the trainers are going to make you eat and bring you food and stuff.
“They take care of you. They want you to do well.”
UTC Athletics photo by Laura O’Dell / UTC linebacker Kobe Joseph (32) gets in on a tackle during the Mocs’ 23-13 win against Wofford in a SoCon game last Saturday in Spartanburg, S.C. The 6-foot-3, 243-pounder from Sharpsville, Pa., is in his first season with the Mocs, joining them as a graduate transfer after four years at Harvard in the Ivy League.And he has enjoyed his time in Chattanooga. A native of Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, his father Matt was played football at the University of Pittsburgh, while his mother Suzanne Cisco starrred in track and field as a Division III All-America heptathlete at Augustana in South Dakota. So aside from having a pair of Harvard teammates from Chattanooga (McCallie twins Austin and Jack Gentle), he hadn’t thought of the Scenic City until the recruiting process brought him here.
“The city is kind of everything I wanted it to be,” he said. “I grew up in Pennsylvania. It looks like Pennsylvania, but we’ve got a lot better weather. The people have been incredible, the Southern hospitality is a real thing. I have no complaints. They take great care of us here, the school staff, the coaches, the compliance, everything. It feels like they’re all working towards us and taking care of the football team.”
And Joseph has done well with the time he has been given on the field. Slowed a bit due to a preseason injury that caused him to miss the opener at North Alabama, he has been solid in the linebacker rotation since, with 10 tackles, including three for loss and a pair of sacks, while sharing time with sophomore Alex Mitchell, junior Bo Spearman and Auburn transfer Kam Brown, another junior.
“Kobe is just the ultimate football player, the ultimate team guy, but he’s a football guy,” UTC coach Rusty Wright said. “He will do whatever you ask: Last week, he played linebacker for us, he played on the kickoff team, had him on the punt return team busting up the shield. You want 100 of those guys on your team.
“He does anything and everything you ask him to do, and you can’t have enough of those guys. He’s fit in. He’s a smart guy so you can play him at middle ‘backer or you can play with the outside ‘backer, you can do those things, and that’s what’s so cool about him is he just goes. You ask him every day, ‘Kobe, how you are you doing?’ He immediately is like, ‘I’m doing great coach, you doing all right?’ You want to be around those guys, and you want those people in your program.”
That feeling extends to his teammates.
“Kobe loves playing the game of football as we can see, and he just has a passion for it,” defensive lineman Quay Wiggles said. “I like guys who like to have a passion for this game and you have a reason for why you’re doing what you’re doing, and that’s the thing about Kobe: He has a reason for why he’s doing what he’s doing.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.