Going into the second year in the program under coach Tom Arth, the feel around the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team is different.
Junior quarterback Nick Tiano says, "We've adjusted." Senior defensive lineman Derek Mahaffey calls the team "hungry."
Both could be right, and the early feel among the Mocs is that the program is on the right track - although it took one of the worst seasons in a decade to get there.
"The difference between last year and this year is night and day," Tiano said after Thursday's practice, the team's second of the preseason. "Last year, I remember stepping out here, eyes wide open, not really confident in what you're doing. It's one thing to know the system on paper, it's another thing to come out here and execute it, so I think getting a year under my belt - having last spring, fall camp, season, another spring, summer and now camp - I feel so confident coming out here.
"The guys are all more confident in the system, and we're just ready to go."
Arth praised the players' work ethic in the offseason, but he was noticeably disappointed after Wednesday's practice. He challenged the team that night to have a better practice Thursday, and he felt the Mocs responded.
"I felt we'd lost some of our edge," Arth said. "We challenged their competitiveness and their overall mentality, and they came out today and really proved that they can do it and that we can practice and we can compete at a high level while still respecting each other on both sides of the ball."
The results were disapppointing early in the 2017 season. UTC lost six of its first seven games and at times looked bad as the offense struggled to move the ball and the defense was on the field too much. The team's mentality changed late in the year, and the results came with it as the Mocs split their final four games and had opportunities to win the other two.
"The whole team is bought-in," Mahaffey said. "We're closer, all the way down to the core. We didn't work on that last year, but this year it's more love, which is something you love to see as a team."
The extra year in the program seems to have helped the team's confidence tremendously. The revamped offensive line has shown improvement, which has in turn improved the offense. The defense doesn't look as if it has missed a beat from being the Southern Conference's top-ranked unit with a lot of key players returning.
The coaches haven't changed how they wanted to do things. The players seem to be more understanding of what's asked of them, and as a result they feel better about the road ahead.
"When you look across the board, we're as talented as any team in the country that we'll play," Tiano said. "We've got experience; we've got great players who have made a lot of plays here, so everybody's confident and ready to go. I think the first game will tell a lot for us; if we go out and have a great night, we can get this thing rolling, and it'll be a different story this year."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.