Davon Kiser spent the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s season opener two weeks ago doing the one thing a return man hates to do.
He waved his arm for fair catches. Every time.
“I just had to stick to the plan, fair catch everything,” said Kiser, a 5-foot-6, 171-pound receiver from Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. “I didn’t want to get hurt again. So it was tough mentally for me, but I got through it.”
Two weeks in, Kiser is still working back toward being the player the Mocs thought they were getting when they pulled him out of the Ivy League, and he’s also still waiting for the offense to find room for what he does best.
It’s the latest twist in what wasn’t a straight path even before he got to UTC.
Kiser was a nonscholarship player at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he was an All-Ivy League second-team selection as a return specialist in 2022 after he had the Big Red’s first kickoff return touchdown in 11 years with a 91-yarder against Dartmouth. He missed the 2024 season with an injury. And because the Ivy League does not allow graduate students to compete, he needed a new home for his fifth and final year of college football.
“It’s been a rocky road,” Kiser said. “Chattanooga hit me up and seemed like they really wanted me, showing me a lot of love. So I reciprocated that, and it’s been a pretty smooth ride so far.”
Kiser has been dealing with an injury that has limited how much the coaching staff can use him, and offensive coordinator Ricky Spradling said the adjustment from Cornell to the Mocs has been part of it. Still, there was notable progress for Kiser from the season opener at West Georgia on Aug. 27 to last weekend’s loss to Tennessee Tech, which dropped UTC to 1-1 entering Saturday’s 6 p.m. game at Eastern Kentucky (0-2).
“I think we work a little bit differently,” Spradling said. “That load that was put on him — some of these guys, I think it just shocks their systems. But we’re slowly starting to get him back. You can see the first week, he didn’t even return anything. This week he returned five balls. So now hopefully you can start slowly adding reps offensively.”
Head coach Rusty Wright said Kiser’s value has already shown up in places the box score does not capture.
“The biggest thing he’s done for us in two games is caught all the punts, where last year we wouldn’t catch them and they’d roll for 25, 30 yards and we’d be backed up,” Wright said. “And he’s fearless when it comes to that. I appreciate that fact.”
Spradling’s expectations were higher than catching punts when Kiser arrived as a transfer.
“I told him when he got here he could be a player of the year-type guy in this conference,” Spradling said. “Unfortunately, we just had these issues.”
Kiser was clocked at 10.6 seconds in the 100-meter dash in high school, and speed is the one thing an injury-thinned UTC offense has not been able to put on the field so far.
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“He’s the speed we need,” Spradling said. “When it comes to man coverage, he’s the one guy that could really help us out if we can get him back.”
Kiser sees the same fit.
“I think I bring a lot to the table. I bring speed. I feel like I can stretch the field,” he said. “So I think it could open up everyone else, including me.”
The passing game has been a weekly puzzle for a staff working around injuries while the defense has carried the load.
“It’s been frustrating,” Kiser said. “A lot has changed since camp with a lot of guys going down. We’ve got to get the O-line, the quarterback, the receivers and the running back on the same thing so we can make everything click.”
Kiser grew up around the game. His father, Roosevelt Kiser, ranks in Florida A&M’s top 10 in career receiving yards and spent the 2007 season with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. He coached his son until high school.
“He gave me a lot of great tips,” Kiser said, “and I feel like I had a head start on a lot of the guys in high school just because of the stuff my dad taught me.”
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He also learned what happens when a returner gets good at his job. Back at Cornell, after his long touchdown against Dartmouth, the next opponent kicked away from him.
“It just comes with the game,” Kiser said. “It’s kind of respect. I kind of like it. But obviously I want the ball in my hands.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.