Joe Pizzo judges his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga offense by one metric above all others: wins.
It hasn’t mattered how many points the Mocs have scored, it hasn’t mattered how many yards the entire group or any individual has generated. Everybody, from the quarterback to the running backs to the tight ends to the receivers, has had to take an unselfish approach to the season — Pizzo’s sixth as UTC’s offensive coordinator — because the game plan is more about efficiency than explosiveness.
That doesn’t mean the Mocs can’t score at will if necessary; it means they won’t be boxed into a label of being a passing offense or a rushing offense. They can be one, the other or both.
“It’s really any given Saturday,” junior receiver Chris Domercant said. “I feel like Coach Pizzo does a really good job of seeing what the defense is doing, what they’re taking away from us, and we’ve just got to capitalize and take what they give us.”
They have done that well enough for UTC to win five games in a row since an 0-3 start, going 4-1 against Southern Conference opponents so far to move into a tie for first place in the standings as the regular season enters its final month. And after entering the season in the top 10 of both Football Championship Subdivision polls before falling out altogether, they returned, with the Mocs currently 18th in the Stats Perform Top 25 and ranked 25th by coaches.
Already this season, sixth-year senior quarterback Chase Artopoeus has a 396-yard passing game against Portland State on Sept. 28 and an 82-yard rushing performance in last week’s win over Virginia Military Institute. He has thrown for only 257 yards combined in the past two games as defenses have taken away the Mocs’ downfield passing attack, but that has allowed the ground game to get going as the team rushed for a season-high 285 yards against the Keydets last Saturday, with close to half of that from redshirt junior Reggie Davis as he ran for career-high 131 yards.
How balanced have the Mocs been? Four players — Artopoeus, Davis, junior Justus Durant and freshman Journey Wyche — have rushed for at least 50 yards in a game. Three players — Domercant and redshirt juniors Sam Phillips and Javin Whatley — have multiple 100-yard receiving games apiece; a fourth, freshman tight end John McIntyre, had a 50-yard performance against Portland State.
“A lot of times you get into a game, and the worst thing you can do offensively is turn it over,” UTC sixth-year head coach Rusty Wright said. “I think Joe does a good job of taking what people give him, and our kids understand that: Let’s take what people give us and make them continue to make tackles and continue to fit the gaps.
“But if we can hang on to the football, we’re usually pretty good on offense. I think the difference for us is Joe’s patient and he’ll get it figured out.”
Staff file photo / Joe Pizzo, now in his his sixth season as UTC’s offensive coordinator, prioritizes efficiency and taking what the defense is giving on game day.If any game on the schedule calls for the Mocs’ best from an efficiency standpoint, it’s Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. matchup at Western Carolina (4-4, 3-1), a team that like to play fast and has proven it can score at any time. The Catamounts have won the past two series meetings — 32-29 two years ago in Cullowhee, North Carolina, and 52-50 last season at Finley Stadium — despite the Mocs holding a lead in the final minute of both contests.
Last year, when the game was won on Richard McCollum’s 32-yard field goal as time expired, the Catamounts had no drive longer than six plays, because of either an explosive play or a forced punt.
Conversely, the Mocs gained 33 first downs and held the ball for more than 41 minutes in the game, but Whatley also had 231 receiving yards and four touchdown catches. How? That’s what the Western Carolina defense gave the UTC offense, and the Mocs were perfectly OK with simply sustaining drives unless they found a favorable matchup with Whatley.
It’s why Pizzo doesn’t want his offense to have a label. The Mocs have had healthy leads in their past three games, so stats are limited to an extent because the situation didn’t call for anything except ball security.
So while UTC leads the SoCon in no offensive categories, Pizzo’s hope is his approach continues to lead to wins.
“We preach efficiency every week,” he said. “I live by what we call a 12% rule, and basically it means that 12% of your snaps cannot be things like negative plays, foolish penalties, sacks, drop balls. We preach it every week and we track it every week, and if you stay under that 12%, you have a 92% chance of winning the football game if you don’t make those mistakes.
“That’s kind of where the efficiency has always come in with me. If we can live by those rules and we can not do those things, we’ve got a really high-percentage chance to win the game.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.