With 53 seconds to go in a high-stakes Southern Conference football showdown Saturday at Finley Stadium, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sideline was raucous.
The host Mocs had just taken a one-point lead over Western Carolina in the most improbable fashion, on a 2-point conversion via a jump pass from running back Ailym Ford to Camden Overton, with the 6-foot-5, 230-pound sophomore tight end jumping over a defender, plucking the ball out of the air and momentarily losing it before gathering it back in as he hit the ground.
But less than a minute later, the feeling of victory turned into the agony of defeat — on homecoming, no less — as the Catamounts’ Richard McCollum nailed a 32-yard field goal as time expired, giving the visitors a 52-50 victory, ending a four-game winning streak for UTC, and leaving the Mocs 4-2 overall and 3-1 in the Southern Conference ahead of next Saturday’s trip to Mercer (4-2, 2-1).
Western Carolina (5-1, 3-0), which has won five games in a row since dropping its season opener at Arkansas, is ranked 11th by media and 17th by coaches in the most recent Football Championship Subdivision polls. The Mocs were ranked 20th by coaches and 24th by media.
The Catamounts beat UTC for the second year in a row — and again with a last-minute comeback — having won 32-29 in the regular-season finale last November in Cullowhee, North Carolina. That game produced points in every quarter, but this rematch made combining for 60-plus points look tame by comparison.