Tennessee football opened up its 2024 season in dominant fashion, annihilating Chattanooga 69-3 at Neyland Stadium.
The Vols opened up a 45-0 halftime lead thanks to consistent success offensively and Chattanooga’s inability to do anything against the Tennessee front seven.
Following the game, Chattanooga head coach Rusty Wright discussed what he saw from Tennessee, the key for his tram to bounce back and more. Here’s everything Wright said.
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Opening statement
“Props to Josh (Heupel) and them. They have a good football team. They do things like they’re supposed to, play well on both sides of the ball. They play at high tempo, high rate and do a good job executing. They give themselves an opportunity to have a good football team this year. We did way too many things early that you can’t do against a good football team like that, but hopefully we’ll learn from it and get better from it and figure it out.”
On what he can take away from learning about this team
“I don’t think there is any doubt, and this is the thing that has concerned me since camp started, I don’t think there is any doubt this group will fine tune. We’re not very smart, we’re not smart football players yet, we don’t understand concepts of things and how things should happen, and how they should all play out there towards the end. We worked hard on it. I thought we were a little better at that, just the nuances of the game at times, we have not caught up to that in some spots, some places, some positions, and we have to do better, and I have to do better as a head coach. We have to be better as coaches to get that figured out and help those guys out. I don’t think there is any doubt. We came back out second half, and it did get a lot worse. It didn’t matter. We didn’t have any more bodies to put there. We didn’t have any more and played a lot of plays defensively. I thought the kids battled. I saw some freshmen out there that played and did some things when it mattered. I think this group will fight you, and I think they’ll be physical with you, but we are not a very smart football team right now. I think we had more penalties today than we had in three or four games at one time last year, and they’re all things that we can control. They’re all penalties we can control, and it was just not a good thing.”
On what thought of UT QB Nico Iamaleava today
“He is the real deal. I think the more football that young man plays, I think he fits really well in the scheme of what they want to do. I think he is what they’ve been looking for in that spot. He has all the tools. The ball comes out of his hand good. I think the more football he plays, the better he’ll be, and of course he will because he’s started two games. I think in the middle of the year he’ll be rolling really good.”
On if Chattanooga will be better after they play more football
“I think I still have the opportunity to have a good football team, I really do. I love the way we work. I love the way these kids were in that locker room after we got done. I still think I can have a good football team, there’s no question about that. We will have a good football team. We just have to do a lot of little things, it doesn’t matter if were playing Tennessee or The Citadel. We can’t do the things we did today and go win against them, against anybody. That’s the disappointing thing for me, because we talked about it and we harped on it, and we made a point of it, and it was all the way around. It was offense, defense and special teams. I mean you can’t do those things.”
On the performance of UTC QB Chase Artopoeus
“I thought he was fine. They (Tennessee) didn’t give us a whole lot of time to do some things, but I thought he played fine. I have to go watch it and see if he missed any opportunities or anything like that, but he didn’t turn the ball over. I don’t think he ever put it in jeopardy at any point in time. We’ll evaluate it, see it and go from there.”
On the team morale after the game
“It doesn’t change anything we have. Everything we do is still right out there in front of us. It’s no different if we’d have won this game. It still doesn’t matter. Our goal is to win the Southern Conference and go play in the FCS Playoffs. That’s what we do it for. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the group is hurt because it’s a prideful bunch. It’s a bunch that works hard. They understand that football is important. I have a 100 percent belief in my heart that they’ll come back and fight their tails off.”
On if he felt like going for it on fourth down on the drive after the long interception return
“Sure, there was, but we weren’t moving them. We threw it to our best receiver. That’s a chip shot field goal. You have to make those. The one that Alen (Karajic) hit, I wanted to put him out there just to see him hit it. He crushed it, but just pulled it a little bit. Basic things we didn’t do. We have to go do basic things. I thought about it, but we didn’t move them. We tried to run it a couple of times but didn’t move them. Then, you throw it to your best receiver, and he probably should have caught it. I didn’t really see it from where I was. I thought it was a good throw and he had his hands on it. I’m trying to work on everything at that point in time: working on mechanics, PAT’s, field goals and all of those. Just trying to get better at something along the way.”
On the potential struggle of watching film and finding positives from this game
“That’s the thing, there’s going to be some positives out of it, because when you’re on the headphones and you hear that he ran down the middle, you’re hearing those guys on defense saying that he has to go spill that or that he ran down the middle on the puller. Those are things that they can physically see. They have to go do those correctly for us to be any good. Some of it, we just couldn’t move them. Some of it, we just couldn’t get around them. That is what it is, and I knew that coming into it. There will be some things, and it’s just like every Saturday, we’ll take 20-to-25 plays, pull from it, go and move on because it does not matter. You have to learn from it somehow or some way and then move on.”
