Coming back for a sixth and final year of college football, things couldn’t be going much better for East Tennessee State tight end Charlie Browder. The Bucs have won five straight games, remain the only undefeated team in the Southern Conference, and are now one of the consensus top 20 teams in the FCS national rankings. The Bucs climbed to 17th in the Stats Perform Top 25, and 18th in the coaches’ poll.
ETSU (6-2, 4-0) also has done its part to create huge stakes for this Saturday’s home game with Tennessee Tech (7-1, 5-1), which is new to the SoCon this season and ranked 11th by Stats and 10th by the coaches.
At ETSU’s weekly press conference on Monday, Browder, who has appeared at three of the 10 weekly media events as the representative of the offense, was asked if this had been an ideal final season to date.
“The easy answer is yeah, but also, like, we really haven’t done anything yet,” Browder said. “We’re 4-0 in conference play, we’re halfway done, so there’s still a whole bunch of football left to be played. “I think at this point last season we were nowhere near the position we’re in right now. Like right now we control our own destiny to do everything that we want to do. And I think, you know, as a sixth-year senior, as a leader of the team, that’s what you want.”
ETSU is on one of its greatest runs ever in SoCon play. The Bucs have won eight straight Southern Conference games dating to the tail end of last season, tied for the longest SoCon win streak in program history. It’s been more than a calendar year since the Bucs lost a league game, which was last Oct. 18 at Chattanooga. That loss to the Mocs put the 2025 ETSU team at a 3-5 record.
More than 365 days later, ETSU has greatly improved its fortunes through eight games with a 6-2 mark. Browder attributed the success this season, in part, to this being the second year under coach Will Healy and a strong returning core from the 2025 team.
“I think all the other older guys on this team, take pride in knowing where we’ve been, where we are now,” Browder said, adding, “And then we’ve been able to throw those experiences on the new guys, too. When we were playing Chattanooga, coach Healy was making a big emphasis on what that game was like last year, talking about West Georgia, too. So the new guys here kind of understand what we went through as a team last year.
“And, you know, we’re a tight team. We’re close. Like, we all care about each other. So, like, my struggles are Yasir’s struggles,” Browder said, gesturing to defensive lineman Yasir Smith, the other player attending Monday’s media briefing. “So I think we’ve done a good job just coming together, and it’s made this year, I guess, sweeter and more fun. But, you know, we got four more games left, and it can be a whole lot more fun talking at the end of November if we win these next four games.”
Injury report
Mason Mims left Saturday’s 38-0 shutout win at VMI in the third quarter, with ETSU leading 24-0, not long after VMI defensive lineman Jacob Moore sacked Mims, and landed on him with his 303-pound frame.
Jadyn Davis replaced Mims at QB on the drive, and Mims did not return.
Healy, who talked about Mims’ nagging knee injury on his coaches show last week, said Mims practiced on Sunday. Healy considers those reps necessary as the Bucs prepare for a Tennessee Tech team that ranks seventh in the FCS in passing yards allowed (163.4 per game).
“It’s annoying more than it is anything structurally,” Healy said of Mims’ knee issue. “I think he feels a lot better right now than he did on Saturday. So. I mean, he’s played through it for four or five games, so he’ll be fine. It’s just getting him to Saturday again and making sure he can take the reps that he needs this week. Because this defense does a lot of different things, brings a lot of different pressures, moves a lot. They’re faster, physical, and they’re going to play man coverage on the outsides and dare you to beat him. And so he’s got to have a good week of practice, and we got to make sure that he’s healthy enough to be able to do that.”
Meanwhile, Maddox Radcliffe, who started the first six games of 2026 at center for ETSU, remains out. The Bucs slid Micah Sumpter over from guard to start at center against VMI.
“I thought Micah did a really good job,” Healy said. “You know, I think that he’s got the athletic ability, he’s got the strength, he’s got the knowledge, and he was very consistent snapping the football. So for him to make his first start for us at center, I thought he played very well. He’s only going to get better.
“He played well enough to earn the opportunity to do it again and see how fast Maddox can get back,” Healy said. “But, yeah, that’s the plan right now.”
Superlatives for Sumpter
Healy had plenty of good things to say about Sumpter, a 6-3, 319-pound senior who the coach initially recruited out of high school back when Healy was the head coach at Charlotte. Sumpter committed to the 49ers under Healy, who was fired eight games into the season. Sumpter upheld his commitment despite the coaching change then transferred to ETSU, then coached by Tre Lamb, following the 2023 campaign.
Healy recalled scouting Sumpter at Knightdale High in North Carolina, where Sumpter played a variety of positions, including tight end and even taking snaps as the wildcat quarterback.
“I mean, I wouldn’t have wanted to tackle him,” Healy said, adding, “He’s just an unbelievable person and he’s a tremendous athlete. And so watching him run power read, I was like, all right, we’ll take him. If he’s talented enough to run power read as a quarterback, then I think he’s talented enough to pull on counter and power, and he’s been awesome for us. That was one of the fun parts about taking this job, right? You got to reunite with him. And so he’s incredible.”
Calling out the crowd
With ETSU primed for a game that could decide the eventual SoCon champion, and Tennessee off this week, Healy issued the call to Buc fans to pack William B. Greene Jr. Stadium on Saturday. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m., and it’s the first home game for ETSU since it beat Chattanooga 14-3 on Oct. 3.
“Come get your Halloween started,” Healy said. “Fraternities, sororities. Come get ready for trick or treating, because this place has got to be a tremendous home field advantage. We take a lot of pride in playing at home. And this is what everybody here has talked about for at least the last 20 months since I’ve been here. You know, I would say it’s the most important home game we played since the playoffs in 2021. I would say it’s probably top five in the history of the program, so kudos to our guys for making this game this important. Kudos to Tennessee Tech for doing what they’ve done to make this the type of game it is on a national scale and excited about the challenge and ready to see what we’re made of.”
ETSU is aiming to reach the FCS playoffs for the first time since 2021. That was also the last time that William B. Greene Jr. Stadium played host to a matchup between two teams ranked in the top 20. ETSU, which was ranked eighth, hosted Kennesaw State, which was 10th in the Stats poll and fourth in the coaches poll at the time of that game.
Extra points
The shutout of VMI, the Bucs’ first since a 61-0 win over Virginia-Wise in 2024, extended ETSU’s current win streak overall to five straight games. … Tyler Griffin made two touchdown grabs against the Keydets as part of a seven-catch, 56-yard game. He also became the first Buc to catch multiple TDs in a game this season. … ETSU held VMI to 13 passing yards, the third-lowest total allowed by any FCS team in 2026. The Keydets only advanced on the ETSU half of the field twice. … Mims, named to the Jerry Rice Award midseason watch list last week, is completing 72.1% of his passes this season. That’s third among FCS QBs behind Beau Brungard at Youngstown State, winner of the Walter Payton Award in 2025 (the FCS equivalent of the Heisman Trophy) and Charlie Smith at Harvard. … The Bucs ran for a season-high 272 yards, and TJ Peyton matched his personal best with 121 yards on 15 rushes. … ETSU had 72 players who saw the field during the VMI game.