Sam Phillips remembers his first impression when he saw running back Justus Durant, a new teammate at the time, during a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga spring football practice in February.
“He’s going to take us to the promised land,” Phillips, a redshirt junior receiver, said with a laugh Tuesday while recalling that moment. “He was doing some crazy stuff.”
As much as is possible for spring practice, it really was an electric emergence for Durant, a 5-foot-9, 172-pound junior who had always dreamed of playing NCAA Division I football and got the chance with the Mocs — fresh off last fall’s run to the second round of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, the program’s first postseason appearance since 2016 — after transferring from nearby Shorter University, a Division II program in Rome, Georgia.
And with Durant joining redshirt junior Reggie Davis, the Mocs expected to have a dynamic one-two punch at running back even with the graduation of the prolific Ailym Ford and the steady Gino Appleberry.
Once the games started in UTC’s 2024 season, though, Durant wasn’t out there. First it was an ankle injury, then it was just feeling out the game at a higher level of college football, then it was a concussion.
Now he’s back, and if last Saturday was any indication, everything UTC coaches and his teammates envisioned could still very well come true.
Durant had his first 100-yard rushing performance for UTC in the Mocs’ 31-7 win over The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, with his team-high 103 yards and a pair of scores helping them improve to 6-4 overall and 5-2 in the Southern Conference this year with the regular season nearly complete. And the one-two punch the staff believed it could have was finally happening, with Davis, who is second in the SoCon in rushing yards, getting 115 yards on 18 carries.
Davis, who leads the conference in carries with 190 in 10 games, has at least 20 in six games this season, including five consecutive games from late September to late October. Every other UTC running back has missed time, but the return of Durant takes some pressure off the 6-foot, 200-pound Davis.
Durant believes it also allows both of them to “really get out there and shine and show what we can really do.”
Durant had opened a few eyes with his performance in the Mocs’ 41-10 home win against Furman on Oct. 12, when his 14-yard touchdown run late in the second quarter helped UTC go into the locker room well in control with a 20-3 halftime lead, but his 52 yards that day were on eight carries. In his first action since then, he had 11 carries at Western Carolina, then followed it up with his heaviest load yet last week, totaling 16 rushes — just two fewer than Davis.
“Justus has pretty much exemplified everything that we knew he could do,” running backs coach DJ Knox said. “It’s still a growing process — from week to week we’re just trying to build and get better — but he attacks every day with the right mentality. I know he’s experienced early injuries in camp, and then he had an injury midseason when he came back. He actually played pretty good in the Furman game and gave us a spark to get going. The biggest thing has just been trying to make sure he was healthy and he was in a good place so he could perform to his top level, and there’s a clear difference when he’s healthy.
“That’s been the biggest deal, and he’s a great addition to the room because he’s more of a switch-up. Reggie is fast and a speed guy, but Justus kind of fits in the crevices and he’s a smaller guy, so it’s kind of harder to see him and find him, and it’s a great switch-up, a nice one-two punch for the defense to have to deal with. I appreciate him giving his best even though it’s late in the season. I understand it’s week 11, might be a little banged up, but he’s definitely shown that he could be the guy we knew he could be.”
Durant came to UTC with the nickname “Blaze,” a credit to the speed he possesses, and his strength is another asset. Those skills haven’t been fully seen as of yet, but maybe, just maybe, some of that was exhibited against The Citadel on his first touchdown run of the game, a shifty 32-yard touchdown late in the third quarter that helped the Mocs fully assume control in a must-win matchup for their postseason hopes.
“It felt great, honestly,” Durant said. “I’m just giving glory to God because it was a blessing to be able to get out there and have a great game like it was. I needed that run to show people that I can do what I can do, but the job’s not finished, and that was only a little small glimpse of what I can do.”
The Mocs, who rose four spots to 19th in this week’s Stats Perform FCS Top 25 and moved back into the coaches poll at a tie for 25th, are preparing for their final scheduled home date of the season. It’s also their SoCon finale, with the matchup against Samford (3-6, 2-3) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Finley Stadium followed by a trip to Clarksville, Tennessee, to face Austin Peay (4-6) of the United Athletic Conference for the regular-season finale.
Win both of those games, and the Mocs should — should — hear their program’s name called on Nov. 24 as an at-large selection for the 24-team FCS playoffs.
UTC’s six wins so far match the total Durant got to experience in two seasons at Shorter, so coming to Chattanooga provided him an opportunity to do something he never got to do in Rome: play meaningful games at the end of the season.
“We all just have to put our hearts and minds into it as it gets later in the season,” Durant said. “A lot of people tend to clock out, as most coaches call it, but if we continue to put our hearts and minds into it, we’re going to prevail.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.