JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team had heard the talk all week.
The Mocs started this season as a top-10 team in the Football Championship Subdivision national rankings but had fallen out of the polls altogether after an 0-3 start and an open date. However, part of the reason they remained unranked this past week — even after a solid win against Portland State to end the skid — was because their next opponent, East Tennessee State University, had essentially become a media darling due in part to the adversity the Buccaneers faced on their way to a win at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.
That included spending the night on the bus while trying to wait out and navigate their way around floodwaters in the eastern portion of Tennessee and the western end of North Carolina. They improved to 3-2 with the win against The Citadel, having also beaten UVA-Wise — an NCAA Division II program — and Elon.
The Mocs felt slighted because their 1-3 record had come against a schedule that was ranked the fifth-most difficult in the FCS and included a pair of losses (one of them close) to Football Bowl Subdivision programs.
So for 60 minutes Saturday in Johnson City, the Mocs whipped the Bucs up and down the field, which was evident everywhere except on the scoreboard. However, that ultimately tipped in UTC’s favor on a 1-yard touchdown run by Reggie Davis with 43 seconds to play in the Mocs’ 17-10 win in front of a sellout crowd at William B. Greene Stadium.