The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football team has no time to mope around following its 42-41 season-opening loss to No. 3 Appalachian State, the team that famously beat Michigan in 2007.
That’s because Saturday the Mocs will play No. 6 Jacksonville State, the team that famously stunned Ole Miss 49-48 in double-overtime last week.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Mocs coach Russ Huesman said.
With all the national attention the Gamecocks have gotten since last Saturday afternoon, JSU coach Jack Crowe said the challenge his team faces is to move on from the win.
“The challenge is to put it behind us and get on down the road,” Crowe said, later adding that JSU might be a team of destiny, “but destiny will slip right through our fingers if we don’t handle it the right way.”
Unlike the Mountaineers, who hung with Michigan the whole way, Jacksonville State was down 31-10 at halftime.
Starting with their third possession in the third quarter, the Gamecocks scored on their last six possession, five of them touchdowns. Meanwhile, the JSU defense held the Rebels to a field goal in the second half.
“We played better in the second half of that game than we showed at any time in the preseason,” Crowe said.
The best came last, when true freshman quarterback Coty Blanchard threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Kevyn Cooper in the second overtime. Instead of kicking the extra point to tie the game, Crowe went for two points, and under pressure Blanchard dumped a short pass off to Calvin Middleton for the conversion and the win.
“We found out that Coty Blanchard is a playmaker,” Crowe said. “He stepped up and made two back-to-back plays that are Doug Flutie plays.”
Marques Ivory is JSU’s starter and Blanchard is the backup who will play a lot, Crowe said, adding that there is no quarterback controversy.
Jacksonville State will have to protect against coming out flat against the Mocs after being on such a high all week, but the scene at JSU Stadium should prevent that.
The Gamecocks’ stadium has undergone a massive renovation and Saturday’s game will be the first since the project will be completed. That, coupled with the excitement from the Ole Miss win, could lead to a sellout crowd of 24,000.
“I think that helps both teams,” Huesman said of the big crowd. “You go on the road at a place that’s loud and there’s people in there, I think it gets your guys a little jacked up, too.”
John Frierson is in his fifth year at the Times Free Press and fifth year covering University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletics. The bulk of his time is spent covering Mocs football, but he also writes about women’s basketball and the big-picture issues and news involving the athletic department. A native of Athens, Ga., John grew up a few hundred yards from the University of Georgia campus. Instead of becoming a Bulldog he attended Ole ...
Hat's off to a scrapping Jacksonville State team. I do,however, hope the Mocs scrap right back at them this coming Saturday after their near miss with Appy State. GO MOCS!
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