The final 10 minutes of last week’s game against East Tennessee State University are the type of urgent situation that the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team’s offense and veteran coordinator Joe Pizzo would probably prefer to avoid in the future if at all possible.
It did confirm, though, that hard work usually pays off sooner or later. In this case, later — both in the game and the season.
UTC quarterback Camden Orth led an offense that compiled 232 yards in the Mocs’ final three possessions of the 17-point comeback for a 42-38 victory against a Southern Conference rival at Finley Stadium. Orth completed 12 of his final 15 passes — which includes two incompletions resulting from spikes to stop the clock — for three touchdowns and 184 yards, more yardage than he’d thrown for in four of the team’s six prior games.
For a passing offense that ranked last in the Socon in a number of categories going into the ETSU game, it was a performance the Mocs needed. It was also a performance to show the work — in the spring, in the summer, in the open date before hosting the Buccaneers — that Orth and the rest of the offense had put in.
“We worked whenever we had a chance,” Orth said. “It was, ‘All right, let’s go throw after practice.’ We knew we had to get it down pat, because it comes down to those last couple seconds where all it is is falling back to your training.”