By the time the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s 2025 football season ended, the team had become a rudderless ship.
From start to finish, it was a season in which the Mocs were riding the waves, with a lot of downs — not all of those of their own making — and some ups as well, but it came to a crashing halt in a 35-13 loss to Wofford in the finale Saturday in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
While recent seasons hadn’t always yielded desired results for anyone associated with the program, there was never a question as to which players were the team leaders. Throughout his first six seasons as UTC’s head coach, Rusty Wright could count on there being pillars of the program, from quarterback Nick Tiano in 2019 to tight end Jay Gibson in 2024.
From a talent standpoint during that stretch, the defense was flush with All-Americans in the front and All-Southern Conference linebackers in the middle, and while there was a lot to be desired for the offense, that was less about lacking quality athletes and more about about failing to take advantage of opportunities.
This year, that changed. Key players at receiver, on the offensive and defensive lines, at linebacker and all throughout the secondary left to chase NIL money at bigger programs because, by comparison, UTC didn’t have anything to offer financially in the first year in which the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit settlement cleared the way for schools to begin paying players directly via revenue sharing.