Mark WiedmerNever mind Saturday's final score from Finley Stadium, the one that showed Wofford whipping the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team 21-10.
That was bad enough, if only because just one of the Mocs' final seven possessions ended in Wofford territory, with that drive stalling at the Terriers' 31-yard line after the visitors went ahead by 11.
Almost as disturbing were the half-or-more-empty stands on the home side. After all, this was a warm and sunny October Saturday in which big brother Tennessee was off, No. 1 Alabama was almost done with its 65-31 shellacking of Arkansas before the Mocs started at 3 p.m., and Georgia - the third Southeastern Conference team with a rabid fan base in this area - wasn't kicking off until 7:30 p.m. against Vanderbilt, about 90 minutes after the Wofford-UTC game ended.
The only excuse for even the most casual of Mocs fans not to be there was no excuse. Yet even the announced attendance of 8,010 was quite generously overstated unless at least 3,000 fans were jammed into the luxury boxes.
And that's such a shame, because UTC entered this contest with a 4-1 record and playing the kind of inspiring football that should have placed at least 10,000 Mocs Maniacs in the stands, if not a couple of thousand more than that.
But they weren't there, and Mocs Nation being the difficult, if not impossible bunch to figure out when it comes to attending football games, it may not be back, because this was not exactly a performance from which to launch a bandwagon stampede for later home contests.
"Not running it consistently makes it difficult to be successful," UTC coach Tom Arth said after watching his team rush for a grand total of 21 yards compared to 442 for the Terriers.
"We pride ourselves on being able to run the football. We don't have to run it two-thirds of the time, but we need to be able to run it when we want to run it."
To make matters worse, when you can't run it against the No. 6 team in the FCS Coaches Poll - a Wofford team that also leads the Southern Conference in pass defense - you probably have nowhere to go but to defeat, which is exactly where the Mocs went for the second straight week after winning their first four games this season.
That said, UTC won three games all last season. With quite winnable games remaining at Western Carolina this coming Saturday, against Virginia Military Institue on Oct. 27 after an off week, at Furman on Nov. 3 and the home finale against Mercer on Nov. 10, there's no reason these Mocs can't still post eight wins. And that certainly would give the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs committee reason to to consider UTC for an at-large bid.
"It's tough," said UTC junior quarterback Nick Tiano, who hit 21 of 33 passes for 165 yards, a touchdown and an interception. "There were plays out there we could have made and didn't. They're a great defense, but at the end of the day, if we execute, we should win."
Nobody but Alabama wins them all, but UTC can still wind up with the kind of win-loss record that should send at least 10,000 fans scurrying to Finley Stadium every time the gates open.
This much is also true: Though Wofford is the SoCon's only ranked team at the moment, East Tennessee State, UTC and Mercer all received votes in the most recent STATS FCS poll. The league is tough throughout, given that Samford almost beat Florida State early but was 0-2 in the conference until routing Western Carolina on Saturday.
Looking back on the Mocs' 4-0 start, Arth said, "By no means when we were 4-0 were we playing at a level that would continue to allow us to win games. We had to improve, and we're kind of the same team. If you're not improving, it's going to be tough."
Whether they've improved or regressed, the Mocs should have enough to win at Western Carolina. Then comes an off week at the best time possible - right before the final stretch against VMI, Furman, Mercer and the wallet-stuffing (near-certain) loss at South Carolina.
As Arth was wrapping up his postgame remarks, he was asked if Wofford had done anything that surprised him on either offense or defense.
"No, not at all," he replied. "They do what they do. That's what makes them a good football team."
You get the sense that Arth is still figuring out what his team can do, which is understandable given the turnover and injuries he has dealt with over his first 17 games on the job, especially at quarterback.
These Mocs may or may not show the improvement their coach covets in the weeks to come. But regardless of how great or small that movement forward, UTC should still win at least twice as many games as last season.
Now if it could just get its fickle fans to double their support on those days when the competition for their football interest for SEC schools is cut by half or more.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.