The East Tennessee State football team goes into the week as the only team in the Southern Conference that is undefeated in League play, and, also ranked. The Bucs cracked the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 on Monday, ranked 24th after beating Chattanooga 14-3 on Saturday, the third straight win for ETSU (4-2, 2-0).
“We’ve gone from nobody thinks we can do jack in week one to now you’re ranked in the top 25,” Bucs coach Will Healy said at Monday’s weekly press conference at ETSU. “And the response for handling success has got to be just as important as the response for handling failure.”
Now ETSU turns its attention to The Citadel (2-3, 0-2) in a game that also marks the first conference road trip of the 2026 docket for the Bucs. It’s also Healy’s first trip to The Citadel as an opposing head coach; he made several journeys to Charleston during his seven years on the staff at UTC.
“I think it’s a tough place to play,” Healy said. “It’s a fun place. You know, there’s a lot of history. My uncle actually played at the Citadel. So for me, whenever I was an assistant in this league and had a chance to go down there, I mean, you just understand the history and the tradition that’s involved.”
Healy also pointed to the past lineage of coaches at The Citadel, which includes Bobby Ross (1973-77), whose head coaching career included stints at Maryland, Georgia Tech, and both the Chargers and Lions franchises in the NFL; and Ralph Friedgen, who spent six years on The Citadel staff before stints as a play caller in the NFL and a head coach at Maryland.
“It’s a great city, it’s a long trip on a bus, in a hostile environment against a team that is not going to beat themselves,” Healy said. “Those are difficult road trips to have. You know, it’s going to be physical. It’s going to be a four quarter battle. And so that makes it difficult anytime you go down there.”
Johnson grabs SoCon honor
For the third time this season, an ETSU player has captured a Southern Conference weekly honor. The latest accolade winner is linebacker Jarvis Johnson, after he had 13 tackles including two stops for loss in the Bucs’ 14-3 win against Chattanoga. Johnson’s 13 stops were the most by an ETSU defender this season.
It marks the third straight week where an ETSU player has earned a weekly award from the conference. The others were DB Mike Jenkins (Sept. 21, Defensive) and PK Ewan Johnson (Sept. 28, Special Teams).
Special teams, special effort
Healy praised the punting performance of Luke Stewart against the Mocs. Stewart averaged 46.5 yards per punt, with a long of 74 yards, and three kicks downed inside the 20.
Stewart joined the Bucs this past offseason as a junior college transfer.
“I thought Luke really punted the ball well and flipped the field,” Healy said. “It became there for a little while a field position type game. And I thought Luke definitely had his best game of the year. Very, very proud of him and how we covered punts and ended up being a massive part of the victory.”
Injury report
There were pictures on social media of ETSU center Maddox Radcliffe in a protective boot, but Healy wasn’t ready to declare anyone aside from established prior injuries as out for this trip to The Citadel.
“I think we’re going to have a bunch of guys that are going to be, like, let’s see how they progress through the week. But, you know, it’s not anything crazy for going into week seven and against a physical football team like we just saw,” Healy said. “So, relatively speaking, we’re in pretty good health.”
Any given Sunday
The Bucs have been practicing on Sundays this season, inside the Mini Dome, then taking Mondays off for media responsibilities and meetings. Healy appears to like the schedule change.
“It’s fun to be over in the dome. That’s an incredible resource that we have to be able to practice inside on Sunday,” Healy said.
Healy also broke down the format for those Sunday practices: focus on the winning play and weekly players of the game, then focus on correcting mistakes from the last game for the next 15-minute period, then 15 minutes on special teams, and a 15-minute period looking ahead to the next opponent.
“Let’s get a head start on critical situations,” Healy said. “Maybe it’s red zone, maybe it’s goal line, maybe it’s third down. Whatever it may be that we’ve got a really good feel for that game plan piece already.”
Buc bites
ETSU offensive line coach Patrick Covington was the OL coach and offensive coordinator at the Citadel in 2023 and 2024. … The three points allowed Saturday against Chattanooga marked the lowest total in a SoCon game since ETSU revived the football program in 2015. … Bucs QB Mason Mims has completed 70.4% of his passes through six games, which ranks fifth among all FCS signal callers. … ETSU has a 52.4% success rate completing third downs. That’s fourth in the FBS behind Illinois State (58.0), Dartmouth (57.5), and Youngstown State (56.1). … ETSU RB Jason Albritton leads the SoCon in rushing touchdowns with seven. … Fellow Bucs RB TJ Peyton leads the SoCon in all-purpose yards (123.0 ypg).