Coming off a 2018 football season in which he earned Freshman All-America honors, defensive end Devonnsha Maxwell met with new University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach Rusty Wright.
A former Mocs player and assistant, Wright had just returned to his alma mater to replace Tom Arth, who recruited Maxwell to Chattanooga but departed after two years to take over at Akron. Wright's message to Maxwell was simple and complimentary, but also pretty clear: You're good, but not quite good enough.
Again: Maxwell had totaled 5.5 sacks, which ranked second for a freshman in Mocs history, trailing only Joshua Williams' seven sacks in 2009.
But playing defensive end at UTC, where three of the top four leaders in sacks in school history - Davis Tull (37), Keionta Davis (31) and Isaiah Mack (21) - were either drafted or found their ways onto NFL rosters, good wasn't going to be good enough. Maxwell is now fourth on that list with 16.5 sacks, with no fewer than two seasons to play.
Despite the strong start, he still had a lot of learning to do - even more than he realized after arriving on campus after starring at Valdosta, the high school football power that won its 24th Georgia state title to cap Maxell's senior season in 2016.
"When Coach Wright first got here, he taught us how to practice," Maxwell, who redshirted for the Mocs in 2017, said last week. "I would know how to practice; I would go out and do what I was supposed to do and get out, but the emphasis he put on finishing plays, finishing tackles, tearing off blocks, running to the ball just made me better than what I was before."
But Wright's message - "You're good, but you can be better" - still rings clear to him. And Wright hasn't been alone in that message, as new defensive line coach Nick Davison, Maxwell's fifth position coach since coming to UTC, has been preaching a similar message.
"I take it more as motivation," Maxwell said. "Coach Davison knows the way to get under my skin is talking about football, so he'd tell me I got blocked on a certain play or he'd tell me about something I did wrong. So Coach Wright saying that to me is motivation to me."
Whatever the combination of Wright and Davison have said to Maxwell has had a solid effect on the 6-foot-2, 295-pounder so far this season. He has five sacks in four games in 2020-21, and his average of 1.25 sacks per game ranks first in the country for Football Championship Subdivision players who have appeared in more than two games this season. He punctuated the Mocs' 20-18 Southern Conference win at Furman on Saturday with his fifth sack, forcing a fumble on the play that was recovered by fellow lineman Ben Brewton.
The Mocs (3-1, 3-0) host Mercer (2-5, 2-2) at noon Saturday at Finley Stadium, with up to 5,000 fans permitted, and Maxwell is one reason why UTC has kept pace with Virginia Military Institute (4-0, 4-0) as the only remaining undefeated teams halfway through the SoCon's spring schedule.
Maxwell knows there's still room for improvement. Wright and staff have done a good job helping him try to be his best, adding depth at the position so the 2019 All-SoCon first-team pick is able to have ample rest during a game to be as effective as possible when he is on the field.
What he's doing right now could give him the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Mack, Davis and Tull in other ways, including playing at the next level.
"He's what you want (a defensive lineman) to look like. He's what you want him to be," Wright said last week. "Being good is important to him on top of being a good player, which makes a difference. It helps when your better players are also the better people on the team.
"He works really hard at being a good player and does stuff off the field to be a good player; you can tell he's stronger. The weight room is important to him, and he will give himself an opportunity to play on Sundays if he continues to grow and get better."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.