Greeson: Football Mocs start work for staying on top

After six seasons as coach, Russ Huesman has led UTC to its first unbeaten conference record.
After six seasons as coach, Russ Huesman has led UTC to its first unbeaten conference record.

How do you improve on history?

That as much as any personnel discussion or assistant coach transition seems to be the biggest question facing the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and football coach Russ Huesman as the Mocs open spring practice today.

Last year was the apex. It was the cosmic tumblers clicking together and showing Chattanooga what was possible -- and something that many who have known and followed the program in the dark P.H. (Pre Huesman) days believed to stretch the realm of what was possible.

It was a belief and a dominance -- UTC won its conference games by an average of more than 26 points -- that made you doubt the league as much as you praised the Mocs.

UTC crushed the Southern Conference and earned a bye in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The Mocs rolled into the second round, winning their first postseason game in program history in the program's first home postseason game.

The Mocs were a play or two away from beating New Hampshire and getting to the national semifinals, and in a lot of ways, tantalizingly close is infinitely more painful than miles away.

It's that lingering bitter taste of dreams unfilled that Huesman is counting on as the motivating factor as preparation for more titles and postseason memories starts today.

"Last year we hated everybody," Huesman said on "Press Row" on ESPN 105.1 FM this week. "We hated you and you and everyone, and we played with a chip on our shoulder all year.

"Staying hungry and playing like that again will be the biggest thing, I think, about whether we can get back (to the playoffs)."

Huesman said rightly that staying among the best is harder than working to get invited to the party, and that's the challenge now.

UTC has arrived, but whenever a program or a team or even a player starts to rest on the comforts of success gone by, more times than not that success goes bye-bye.

Huesman likely has more than a few suggestive phrases and ideas on how to make sure the Mocs are moving forward and getting better rather than looking back at how good they were.

Sure, replacing a star-studded defensive front that included future NFL players Davis Tull and Derrick Lott may be job No. 1 on the field this spring, but Huesman is acutely aware that the first order of business within the program is reacquiring the focus and the urgency that carried the Mocs to within a trick play or two of being a top-five team in the country last year.

He and his staff -- and his leadership group inside the locker room led by returning Southern Conference offensive player of the year Jacob Huesman -- have 168 days to galvanize that cutthroat instinct that has pushed the Mocs to the front of the SoCon.

There has been a lot of heavy lifting to his point, literally as well as figuratively.

"We always thought we could win, and we wanted to make sure we were doing it the right way recruiting young players and keeping them around and improving," Coach Huesman said. "But everyone thinks you're going to win, actually getting there was tough.

"And staying there is harder."

To stay, the Mocs must be comfortable taking everyone's best shot. That's the underlying secret that makes repeating -- and in the case of UTC, potentially three-peating with at least a share of the SoCon title -- so dangerous.

UTC will have to handle its business weekly this fall knowing that every other SoCon school has its date with the Mocs highlighted. There are no off days for the opponent that wears the crown and the bull's-eye that comes with it.

And that preparation starts today.

Huesman knows it, too, and in truth has worked to achieve it.

All of the Mocs have, and now the spoils of success make it joyful for those trying to spoil the successful.

UTC's ascent has been driven by talent and hunger and a couple of fortunate breaks. Some early transfers and some recruiting home runs helped lay the cobblestone that paved the way for the Mocs' move to the front of the SoCon pack.

Staring at an open slate that starts today -- with a 2015 season filled with championship potential -- UTC still is talented, and fortunate breaks are impossible to calculate.

It's the hunger that Huesman realizes he and the Mocs must maintain to keep their place at the top.

Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6343. Follow him on Twitter at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com. His "Right to the Point" column appears on A2 on Monday, Thursday and Saturday, and his sports columns run Tuesday and Friday. Read his online column "The 5-at-10" weekdays starting at 10 a.m. at timesfreepress.com.

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