UTC receiver Wil Young heads for the end zone with a touchdown catch during the Mocs' season opener against Tennessee Tech on Aug. 30 at Finley Stadium. Young and the Mocs will close their 2018 schedule today with a game at South Carolina.It's an opportunity the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team is grateful for, and there are a number of reasons why.
Saturday's 7:30 p.m. game at South Carolina (5-4), which will be shown on the SEC Network's alternate channel, puts the Mocs (6-4) on their biggest stage of the year. It will give them a prime-time opportunity to end their season, which was once so promising, on a positive note.
UTC coach Tom Arth knows the odds of a team from the Southern Conference upsetting one from the Southeastern Conference are long - at least one Las Vegas bookmaker has the Gamecocks as 31-point favorites - but the final score won't necessarily determine whether the Mocs succeeded in Columbia.
"This is a great opportunity to go play in an SEC environment," Arth said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. "It will be such an incredible experience, and we're going to give our team every opportunity we can and give them every advantage we can to succeed.
"You never go into a game not expecting to win, and we certainly go into this game with that goal. I'm going to tell the players when we meet later today that I can't look at the roster name for name and honestly say that we are as talented as this guy across from us. I can say we can create an edge and mismatches in certain situations."
The game is also an opportunity for UTC to leave the frustration of the past two weeks behind. Back-to-back SoCon losses to Furman and Mercer by a combined 10 points dropped the Mocs to 4-4 in league play and ended hopes of earning an at-large bid for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The missed opportunities within the games only added to the frustration.
"It's been tough the past couple of weeks getting down into the red zone and not being able to capitalize," said senior receiver Wil Young, part of an offense that managed only 19 points in the defeats. "We are moving the ball well, but we get down there and get stuck.
"You go back and dwell on those games and wonder what you could have done to just punch the ball in. Those are hard pills to swallow. We just have to move on from it and remain optimistic. This would be a great week to put it all together."
To do that, the offense will have to match the defense's efficiency against the Gamecocks, who totaled points their past two games but dropped to 4-4 in the SEC with last week's loss at Florida. While the Mocs have struggled to finish drives, UTC's defense ended league play in the top four in nearly every statistical category, including leading the SoCon in fewest points allowed per game at 18.2.
"I just want to finish strong," UTC senior defensive lineman Isaiah Mack said. "Coach Arth wants us to treat every game like it's a 15-round fight. All the great championship fights have always gone 15 rounds."
Playing against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent also gives the Mocs' seniors a big stage on which to improve their professional prospects. Doing so while also putting the team first is a challenge Arth and his staff have addressed this week in practice.
"You have to do it in the context of the scheme offensively and defensively," Arth said. "You can't try to go out there and try to be Superman and do things that's not in your job description.
"This is a great opportunity to play in that venue, especially for our seniors who do have aspirations of playing in the National Football League. How do they match up against an SEC team, the best league of college football in the nation?"
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.