The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga defense is having an identity crisis.
UTC’s football program has been tracking sacks since the 1980s — the NCAA didn’t officially recognize taking down a quarterback intending to pass as an official statistic until 2000 — yet the program’s all-time top six in sacks accumulated those records from 2009-23 as the Mocs developed a reputation for having dominant pass rushers with NFL potential.
In 2024, the Mocs didn’t have the dominant pass rushers getting sacks, but they still had guys who could collapse pockets, and an opportunistic defense responded by forcing 25 turnovers, including 18 interceptions.
But this season, the Mocs aren’t getting sacks. They’re not forcing turnovers. Simply put, they aren’t creating chaos — and it shows. The Mocs rank eighth in the Southern Conference in sacks with five and seventh in interceptions with four. They’ve recovered one fumble for a total of five takeaways, which ranks last in the SoCon and 104th nationally in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Since closing last season with a 24-17 win at Austin Peay, the Mocs have lost four defensive starters to graduation and eight other defensive players (seven of those starters) to the transfer portal. The biggest losses actually came during the spring window, when three players entered the portal, two of them defensive ends.
UTC did what it could in the offseason with the resources available and seemed to be in a good place, but then the secondary got ravished by injuries to cornerback Taylor Smallwood, nickel Nick Coates, backup nickel Jaden Nelson and safety Khari Gee, who missed just one game (the 63-0 home win against Stetson). The edge rushers also got hit with a season-ending injury to promising senior Noah Livingston.
As it stands, the Mocs (2-4, 1-1 SoCon) are expected to start as least two true freshmen in the secondary when they return from their lone open date and kick off the second half of their regular-season schedule by hosting East Tennessee State University (3-4, 1-2) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Finley Stadium.
As far as UTC defensive coordinator Mike Yeager, is concerned, though, there are no excuses.
“It’s our job as players and coaches, whoever our two-deep (rotation) is that week, that’s who we’ve got and we’ve got to get them ready,” Yeager said this week. “We’re trying to get it a little consistent. It’s changed over the last couple of weeks, but the guys that have started to play more and more each and every week have started to get better, and you see that because reps get you better.
“Practice reps get you better, game reps get you better, so hopefully we’ll see us take another step forward this week.”
To his point, freshman nickel Kamari Todd — who has been moved around the secondary since his arrival — was named the state’s college defensive player of the week by the Tennessee Sports Writers Association after totaling 14 tackles in the Mocs’ 21-14 win at Virginia Military Institute on Oct. 4.
“I feel like Yeager feels like that little Dutch boy with the dam: Every time he sticks his finger somewhere, another hole pops up,” UTC head coach Rusty Wright said. “But they’re playing hard. We’ve got to be in the right spots. If they do that, we’ve got to live to fight the next play, and that was the whole thing going into VMI: They’re going to make some plays, you’ve got to make them keep playing, you’ve got to make them make plays.”
So there may not be a ton of sacks by the Mocs. There may not be a ton of forced turnovers. But there are less splashy ways of playing effective defense, too.
In Saturday’s “Rail Rivalry” matchup with ETSU — in its first year under head coach Will Healy, a 40-year-old Chattanooga native who is both a former Boyd Buchanan standout and a former UTC assistant — the Mocs will be banking on the Buccaneers needing a number of methodical drives down the field to score points. That requires avoiding the big plays that have hurt them as a defense at times this season.
It’s a bit different for a guy like defensive end Marquise Freeman, who is in his fourth season with the program and has trained alongside players such as Ben Brewton and Jay Person when they were adding to UTC’s reputation for a fearsome pass rush.
Freeman, though, is optimistic things can — and will — improve.
“I would say it’s new to me to have a defense that doesn’t know it’s identity, because usually over the years, everybody knows what the standard is, what the identity is, and we go do it,” said Freeman, who has one sack and one interception this season. “I would say it’s actually pretty good that we’re actually getting change. I feel like we needed that change to become better, and while right now it doesn’t look as good as it should be, I promise it is going to have a good turnaround.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.