East Tennessee State’s football team faces an uphill battle if the Bucs want to reach the FCS playoffs for the first time since 2021. For ETSU coach Will Healy, any of those conversations are moot unless his Bucs (6-4, 4-2) can start stacking wins again, starting this Saturday at Wofford (5-5, 3-4) (1:30, ESPN+).
“None of the conversations matter unless we play better football,” Healy said. “To say we still have something to play for? We could be 0-10 and I’d be talking to you about, we still have plenty to play for. But this group? Yeah we got a ton to play for.”
ETSU has dropped two in a row, both at home, surrendering the decisive score in the fourth quarter. Samford’s comeback win was especially galling, as the Bulldogs drove 75 yards in the final 57 seconds for the decisive TD as time expired.
“You should be devastated sitting in that locker room and listening to those dudes celebrating on the other side of the wall,” Healy said. “It should hurt you being at home and losing on senior day. All of that stuff should matter. It should suck to have people talk crap about you. It should suck, right? And if that motivates you, great. If it bothers you and it gets you in a state where it’s affecting your performance, then just block it out. Like, don’t listen to it, right? So to me, it’s respond. Everything we’ve asked these dudes to do since they got here, they have responded. I asked them to respond on Sunday. I asked them to respond today with the amount of film they watch and their preparation. I’m going to ask them to respond tomorrow morning with an unbelievable practice. You should watch our practice tomorrow and feel like we’re 10-0. And that we have the hunger and the chip on our shoulder like we’re 0-10. That hasn’t changed for me based off a result of one football game. I have so much confidence in this group. I think we’re a dadgum good football team and I think we got a chance to have a really special year. I have a disappointment in a result. But I’m not disappointed in these dudes.”
The game-winning play by Samford, a 7-yard TD pass to running back Dom Thomas, got play on ESPN as one of the biggest comebacks of the football weekend. Commentators took teasing pokes at ETSU for not covering the running back out of the flat.
Healy, at Monday’s weekly press briefing, said of the last play that “it was not a blown assignment. That’s a thing, as a head coach, did everybody understand what their assignment was on that play? Gave you a little bit of a different look. It was a coverage that we worked and kind of had set for that situation in that game. But I don’t think that I did a good enough job of making sure everybody that was involved understood, if this happens, then this. There was too much if/then on the last play and we didn’t have somebody for the back. Nothing our players did. That was 100% coaching.”
The schedule ETSU has followed meant the Bucs had a quick opportunity to move forward from the Samford game. The Bucs have practiced on Sundays this week, with Mondays reserved for meetings and film study.
“It was rough,” Bucs safety Devin Hunter said Monday regarding Sunday’s practice. “I feel like it was a hunger in the guys that, we’ve got to get this fixed. Like, we have to turn the page. Two big time losses like that, that just hurts. And they’re both one-score losses. You feel me? So it’s like, we’ve just got to fix the back end of the game. We’ve got to fix those last couple of seconds, that last couple of minutes of the game.”
X marks the spot?
On his coaches show Monday night, Healy was asked about the chance of fifth-year receiver and kick returner Xavier Gaillardetz getting the chance to return for one of the final two games. Gaillardetz had been out since mid September with a foot injury suffered in a non-contact mishap in practice that required surgery.
Gaillardetz was out of the boot at the Samford game.
“Man that’d be awesome,” Healy said at the prospect of Gaillardetz playing. ‘He is fully convinced he will play against Mercer. I am not gonna do anything to talk him out of that.”
Mims speaks
After the Samford game, ETSU quarterback Mason Mims met with the media for the first time since the Western Carolina game. Mims’ numbers have dropped off since the calendar turned to October. In ETSU’s first five games, Mims completed 72.7% of his passes (104/143) for 1,211 yards and seven touchdowns, throwing for 200-plus yards three times. In the subsequent five games? Mims has a completion rate of 63.1% (82 of 130) for 798 yards and six touchdowns. Mims has thrown for less than 200 yards in each of the past five games. He’s also been fighting a nagging knee injury that had to be drained on multiple occasions heading into the October bye week.
After Saturday’s game, Mims downplayed the impact of his knee issue, or any other injury, on his recent performance.
“I mean a bunch of teams are hurt, a bunch of guys are hurt. So, I mean, I still expect myself to go out there and play at a high level and I’ve not been. I’ve not held myself to that standard the past couple weeks. So I’ve got to do a better job.”
Hold the Curry
ETSU has given up long kickoff returns in each of the past two games, one for a touchdown against Samford that keyed the Bulldogs’ rally from a 12-point hole, and one to set up a crucial score for Tennessee Tech the week prior as part of 17 straight points to close out the game.
The common link? The Bucs played both contests without linebacker Jeremiah Curry, a wedge buster on the ETSU kick coverage units that suffered a season-ending injury late in the shutout of VMI.
Healy, on Saturday after the Samford loss, described Curry as “a big presence, a big inspirational tone setter on that unit and I think it’s showing up. I mean it looks like we don’t have him running down, busting people and taking two guys to block him and all that stuff. So somebody’s got to step up, but it’s not important enough to us right now.”