RICHMOND, Ky. — The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team spent one half digging out of a hole, about 20 minutes on top of the world, and the rest of Saturday night’s game at Eastern Kentucky watching the Colonels take the thing back.
Brayden Latham’s 1-yard touchdown run with 3:48 to play capped a nine-play, 79-yard drive and lifted the home team to a 22-17 win over the Mocs at Roy Kidd Stadium.
UTC (1-2) had one last chance, moving 41 yards in 11 plays, but Battle Alberson’s fourth-down pass to Ashton Schumann was defended by D.J. Galva at the Eastern Kentucky 4 with 53 seconds left. The Colonels of the United Athletic Conference also moved to 1-2 in front of an announced crowd of 4,588.
“It’s very frustrating, especially when we had momentum, like you said, going in 17 to 16 into the delay,” Schumann said. “I feel like we let this game get away from us.”
The Mocs did not score in the first quarter and trailed 16-3 at the break. UTC coach Rusty Wright had a blunt description of the first 30 minutes.
“We played the first half like we were still on the bus,” he said. “I knew if we’d just come out and play, we’d be fine. And we did.”
The first half cost UTC more than points. Preseason All-Southern Conference first-team safety Kam Baah-Slay was ejected for targeting on Eastern Kentucky’s opening possession, one of three Mocs penalties on a five-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that put the Colonels up 6-0.
“That one was tough to swallow,” Wright said. “We had a good view of it. I had a real good view of it where I was at, and I have a hard time with that one, but it is what it is. It just puts a lot more strain on some other guys to have to go play and play well.”
Senior linebacker Zion Rutledge, who finished with a game-high 13 tackles, said the same thing from the field.
“Definitely bogged you down a little bit,” Rutledge said. “You want a guy like that on the field, but you’ve got to learn how to adapt.”
UTC was flagged five times for 58 yards in the opening quarter and once for four the rest of the night. Brady Hensley’s 96-yard touchdown run for Eastern Kentucky in the second quarter made it 13-3, and Buzz Flabiano’s 33-yard field goal on the final play of the half pushed the lead to 13.
“The long touchdown run is embarrassing,” Wright said. “That’s just absolutely embarrassing, because we don’t fit it right on something we’ve done since January, March, spring till now.”
Then came the third quarter, and the Mocs looked like a different team. D.J. Adams intercepted Eastern Kentucky’s Tyler Travers at midfield for his second pick of the night, and six plays later, UTC running back Kevin Lalin broke a 27-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 to make it 16-10.
After Flabiano missed a 48-yarder wide left, UTC needed three plays to go 69 yards. Alberson hit Schumann for 59 to the Eastern Kentucky 5, then kept it himself around left end for the score and a 17-16 lead with 2:41 to go in the quarter.
And that’s when the lightning came. Both teams went to the locker room for 30 minutes with UTC holding the lead and the momentum entering the weather interruption.
“It’s tough for any team to come back from a delay,” Schumann said. “I mean, it’s not even half. That’s longer than a halftime.”
The Mocs never scored again. They ran 17 plays for 17 yards over their first three fourth-quarter possessions and went 0-for-4 on third down in the period. Alberson was 1-of-8 passing for minus-4 yards in the quarter and finished 12-of-27 for 135 yards with an interception.
“That spot gets too much blame and too much credit a lot of times,” Wright said of his third-year quarterback, who started the final three games last season. “The one pick he threw, we get knocked off the route, don’t get our eyes around fast enough. It’s not always all on him.”
Eastern Kentucky ran for 274 yards on 43 carries. Travers, who was 13-of-23 for 120 yards with a touchdown and two picks, kept it three times on the winning drive for 46 yards.
Lalin ran 17 times for 98 yards, and Schumann caught five passes for 98.
(READ MORE: Heavy workload in opener no issue for UTC’s Lalin)
“You know what you get out of those kids,” Wright said. “They’re going to play their tails off and try like crazy, and that’s all you can ask for. You got to have some other guys step up around them and help.”
Rutledge said the fixes are not complicated.
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“It’s fundamentals,” he said. “You;ve got to block, got to catch, got to tackle, got to read your right assignment. Fundamental things that obviously aren’t clicking right now, so we’ve got to get that right. But we got hope, because we got fighters.”
UTC opens SoCon play next Saturday, when the Mocs host Wofford (2-1) at 6 p.m. at Finley Stadium.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.