The 2025 version of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team is, to date, not a good one.
Even at 1-4, though, there’s still hope for the Mocs because there is both time on the clock and talent on the roster.
Regarding time, UTC has seven of its eight Southern Conference games to play — those contests make up the remainder of the regular season — starting with Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. matchup at Virginia Military Institute (1-3, 0-0) ahead of next week’s open date with a chance to reset. And no matter what has happened to this point, an outright SoCon title would bring an automatic berth to the 24-team bracket for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
As for the talent, with the Mocs entering the season with a rebuilt roster and almost no returning starters, it was known among the new additions there were some who needed to knock rust off, some who needed to gain experience and some who needed to physically develop. But if there was anything gleaned from last week’s thorough beatdown at the hands of The Citadel in UTC’s SoCon opener at Finley Stadium, it’s that the Mocs are still a long way from realizing that.
While they’ve made mistakes in all of their games — just like any football team — the difference between last week’s 28-10 loss to the Bulldogs and the four previous games was that the Mocs had more opportunities to rectify those mistakes this time. In the Mocs’ four losses, the UTC offense has produced 11 scoring drives (seven touchdowns, four field goals), five interceptions, four turnovers on downs, three lost fumbles and two missed field-goal attempts.