The Echo

Issue date: 9/3/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Kasey Green Talk of the town: As the season quickly approaches, ticket sales continue to rise for the 2009-10 UTC football team. Season tickets have reached an all-time high, and Thursday night's game is expected to draw a crowd of more than 6,500. Kickoff for the Mocs is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at Finley Stadium in downtown Chattanooga.

There is much riding on UTC's opening football game at Finley Stadium Thursday night. The Mocs play Glenville State. Many questions will hopefully be answered. There is already a buzz about the season due to record season ticket sales and a little hype thrown in on top.

Coach Russ Huesman will be making his head coaching debut and he talked about his team, expectations, and taking it one day at a time.

"Coming into a new program, you like to have a lot of young kids so you can look and say, hey, two or three years from now we're going to be pretty good," Huesman said.

Despite a solid group of seniors, this team is going to be a very young football team.

UTC plans on playing the best players at each position regardless of experience. Twenty-eight players with at least three years of eligibility left are listed on the Mocs' offensive and defensive depth charts. Out of those 28, at least nine are expected to play against the Pioneers.

Leading the way will be local hero, B.J. Coleman, a sophomore from Chattanooga.

Coleman's arrival at UTC is a stragnge trip indeed. He played prep football at McCallie High School in Chattanooga and was a highly touted recruit who originally signed with the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. After redshirting his freshman year and a head coaching change in Knoxville, Coleman, frustrated with his role with the team, decided to transfer to UTC. Needless to say, an infusion of talent at quarterback is welcome.

"It's important for the quarterback to be that field general," Coleman said. "You've gotta be the leader out there. You've gotta be the guy that people look to when the going gets rough."

In addition to the arrival of Coleman, Coach Huesman and UTC expect four true freshman to play early and often. Running back Chris Awuah, from Marietta, Ga., fullback Will Brooks, from White Pine, Tenn., defensive end Josh Williams, from Griffin, Ga., and offensive lineman David Clemons, from Calhoun, Ga., should all see playing time Thursday.

Huesman said this past week that Awuah,, or Bo Dyer, a redshirt freshman from Gatlinburg, Tenn., will start at running back.

The inexperience of the Mocs squad does not only rest with the offense, Defensive Coordinator Adam Fuller said a young team is great for a coach who enjoys working with players.

"Any time you have young kids, you feel like no rep is wasted, " he said. "It should be with anybody, but with young kids you hope that everything they see will stay in their back pockets."

With just 10 juniors on the roster and seven on the two deep, sophomore Jordan Tippit, from Huntsville, Ala., said he and his fellow underclassmen are "preparing ourselves now to be leaders later."

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