UTC Mocs still have season's goals intact

photo A UTC fan waves a Mocs flag Saturday at Finley Stadium.

MOCS GLANCE• UTC (0-2) at Austin Peay (0-1)• Saturday, 5 p.m.• Governors Stadium in Clarksville, Tenn.• 96.1 FM

The silver lining to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's disappointing 0-2 start to the season is that the goals of winning the Southern Conference championship outright and earning an NCAA playoff berth are still there to be claimed.

Beginning with Saturday's game at Austin Peay, the Mocs will be favored in every remaining game except one, the trip to Tennessee on Oct. 11. Their seven-game conference schedule gets under way Sept. 27 at home against Samford, one of last year's co-champions. UTC will host four of those seven league opponents.

"There's still so much football to play," said senior running back Keon Williams, who gained 56 of his 62 yards in the second half Saturday and encouraged his teammates not to lose sight of the season's goals. "As a senior I just tell them we can't give up. It's still early in the season.

"It's tough coming out with high expectations to be good and be 0-2 already, but we just have to keep fighting. That's all we can do."

The frustration from two narrow losses, including Saturday's three-point overtime defeat to No. 9 Jacksonville State, have been compounded by the offense's struggles. The Mocs have managed just 120 combined yards in their last six quarters.

Although the Mocs didn't practice Monday, coach Russ Huesman made it clear there are no off days for the coaches as they make adjustments for the rest of the season.

"It's a long season. Two months from now, we'll figure out where we are," Huesman said when interviewed Monday afternoon by the Times Free Press's Jay Greeson and David Paschall on ESPN Radio's "Press Row." "We still have a good team. We've played two really good opponents, came up short both times. But every goal we set for ourselves, every single goal, is still there. And we plan on achieving every one of those goals.

"We're on notice here in this office. I can tell you right now coaches won't get any sleep this week. There won't be any TV watching. We're working. We're going to put in 16 hours a day. We're going to get it fixed and we're going to be better. No question about that. We have to make a commitment to our players. If that means doing more, then we'll do more. We'll make this city proud of us."

Arkansas-Oklahoma State Live Blog

It's an outlook that was repeated by players on both sides of the ball, from seniors to first-year players. Those included free safety Lucas Webb, who was sporting a bruise over his right eye and a cut across his nose after Saturday's physical game against JSU.

"We still have all the trust in each other as a team, and we still know that we're a good football team," Webb said. "It's one of those things where it's small things and some extra things that we can do to get us past falling short."

Monday, Webb was named the SoCon freshman of the week. Besides returning an interception 37 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter, the redshirt freshman from Northport, Ala., also made six tackles and one pass breakup. In the season opener, Webb had seven total tackles.

Mocs still ranked

Despite still looking for its first win of the season, UTC continues to be ranked by both FCS national polls. The Mocs fell just one spot in The Sports Network poll to No. 14 and slid two spots in the coaches' poll to No. 17. Last week's opponent, Jacksonville State, moved up one spot to No. 8.

Tommy Hudson, the only senior in the Mocs' rotation at receiver and on special teams, did everything he could to come up with the big play the team needed to steal a win against JSU. Hudson, who had two touchdown catches in the season-opening loss at Central Michigan, including one covering 70 yards, brought back a punt 55 yards for what would have been the go-ahead score with less than a minute remaining against the Gamecocks. A block-in-the-back penalty negated that potential game-winner, but Coach Huesman was not surprised by the effort from Hudson.

"I grabbed him before he went out and said, 'Tommy, you catch this and go for us, bro. Make something happen here,'" Huesman said. "He nodded his head and that's what he did. We didn't block anybody on the thing, so he did it all on his own. Incredible job by him. He's a tough kid. I love that kid."

Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.

Upcoming Events