Chattanooga's football  Mocs found just the right medicine for all that ailed them Thursday night at Finley Stadium.

Scoring the first three times they had the ball in the first quarter alone, the Mocs built a 21-0 halftime lead over the Glenville State Pioneers en route to a 35-0 shutout before 9,077 enthusiastic fans. It was the first win of the season after back-to-back losses at South Florida and Jacksonville State.

"We needed that one," said UTC coach Russ Huesman during his post-game radio show with the Voice of the Mocs Jim Reynolds.

"There was never much doubt as we did what we needed to do.  We did well in a lot of areas, but I'm still not happy overall as we had too many dropped passes and that bad snap on the punt wasn't very good," he continued.

The Pioneers took the opening kickoff and picked up two first downs before a punt gave the Mocs a first down at the 49.

Two plays and 35 seconds later, UTC was on the board when quarterback Jacob Huesman hooked up with Terrell Robinson for a 44-yard pass play.  Nick Pollard's kick gave the Mocs a 7-0 lead with 13:14 left in the first quarter.

Huesman hooked up with Faysal Sharatt on a 10-yard TD pass on UTC's second possession and the difference was 14-0 following Pollard's kick with 8:04 showing in the first quarter.

Former Red Bank star Keon Williams scored UTC's third touchdown when he plunged into the end zone from the 1 with 3:45 to play in the first.  The Mocs had taken over at the Glenville State 36 following a 25-yard punt and it took 2:41 and seven plays to get into the end zone.

Williams was the leading rusher in the first half with 42 yards on nine carries, but he didn't see any action in the second half after suffering a slight shoulder injury.

Ironically, UTC's longest drive of the half didn't produce any points.

A mishandled snap to punter Nick Pollard turned into a 12-yard loss and the Pioneers had their best field position of the game at the UTC 38 early in the second quarter. 

An eight-yard tackle for loss by Davis Tull combined with a false start penalty forced another Glenville State punt from the 41.  Getting a nice roll, the Mocs started from their own 1.  Despite not scoring, UTC ran 21 plays in gaining 97 yards while wiping more than nine minutes off the clock.

That 40-yard Pioneer punt was downed at the UTC 1 with 10:33 left in the half.  The Mocs marched 97 yards in 21 plays, consuming 9:09 in the process, but came up empty when Huesman's pass to Robinson was incomplete in the end zone.

"That may have been a record for us, but we should have scored on that drive.  Jacob should have run it in on third down.  We're still a work in progress as we haven't arrived by any stretch, but this is a fun group to watch," the coach added

"We had Jacob and Terrell on the field at the same time a bunch tonight and that package will continue to work.  That first touchdown pass with them was pretty cool.  They're such different players, but they compliment each other so well.

The Mocs added a pair of second-half touchdowns with sophomore Marquis Green getting both on runs of 5 and 8 yards.

The first came following an interception by Wes Dothard, who put the Mocs in business at the Pioneer 28 following the six-yard return.  As had been the case in the first half, UTC needed just three plays to go the distance.

Green started things off with a 10-yard sweep to the left before quarterback Robinson picked up another first down with a 13-yard scamper to the right.  Green's then raced untouched to the right pylon as the lead increased to 28-0.

Then with 10:34 left in the final stanza, Green ended a 10-play, 66-yard drive with his sweep from the 8 as the Mocs scored for the last time in this game.

The Mocs drove down to the Glenville State 3 as the clock was winding down, but got penalized for a false start.  Third-team quarterback Graham Nichols then took a knee on the final two snaps as the game came to and end.

The Mocs ended up with 477 total yards, including 230 on the ground and another 247 through the air.  On the other side of the field, the Pioneers were limited to 78 total yards, including a net of 17 on the ground and 61 through the air.

Green was the leading rusher for the Mocs with 59 yards on nine carries while Huesman added 46 yards on seven trips, including a long of 21 yards.

Huesman was 16 of 26 for 210 yards while Robinson completed four of seven passes for another 37.

Tommy Hudson paced the UTC receivers with six catches for 64 yards.  J.J. Jackson and Shafaat both had three while Robinson and Taharin Tyson snagged two apiece.  Robinson finished with 76 total yards, including 24 rushing yards on six carries and 52 on those two catches.

Rahmann Lee was the leading rusher for the Pioneers with 26 yards on nine carries.  Darold Hughes completed 13 of 23 passes for 61 yards.

Former Brainerd star Orlandus Harris was one of four Glenville State receivers with three catches, but he could only generate six yards and was never a factor in the outcome. 

The Mocs had a 31-5 advantage in first downs.

Defensively, Dothard had four solo tackles and two assists to lead UTC while Davis Tull had four tackles, including two sacks for minus 19 yards.

The Mocs also had possession for 37:21 while the Pioneers had the ball for 22:39.

As might be expected, the first-half stats were a bit lopsided as the Mocs had 16 first downs while gaining 112 yards on the ground and another 134 through the air.

Conversely, Glenville State was limited to just three first downs as they gained one yard on 10 rushing attempts while getting 35 yards on six completed passes.

UTC entered the game with two losses to open its season while Glenville State is 1-1 after losing 56-46 to Carson-Newman before posting a 41-21 victory over Fairmont State.

All three of Glenville State's games have been played on Thursday night.

UTC returns to action with another home game on Saturday, Sept. 22 when league foe Appalachian State comes to Finley Stadium.  Glenville State will play at Lindenwood next Saturday.

"We must prepare well this week as we're fixing to play a really good football team.  We have our work cut out for us next Saturday night," Huesman concluded when talking about the Mountaineers.

GLENVILLE STATE   0  0  0  0  --  0

CHATTANOOGA     21  0  7  7  -- 35

UTC -- Terrell Robinson 44 pass from Jacob Huesman (Nick Pollard kick), 13:14 left in first;

UTC -- Faysal Shafaat 10 pass from Huesman (Pollard kick), 8:04 left in first;

UTC -- Keon Williams 1 run (Pollard kick), 3:45 left in first;

UTC -- Marquis Green 5 run (Pollard kick), 4:37 left in third;

UTC -- Green 8 run (Pollard kick), 10:34 left in fourth.

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@comcast.net)