JOHNSON CITY — Will Healy stood up in the ETSU locker room and hollered and yelled and hyped his team after ETSU beat Tusculum 48-14 on Saturday.
You can see it on the ETSU football Instagram.
It was the release of emotion that comes with the first win of the season.
After the release, when the adrenaline faded, Healy talked about how far the Bucs have to go.
Yes, ETSU won this game handily, outscoring the Pioneers 28-7 in the second half and outgaining them by a 484-321 margin. However, the Bucs’ Division II opponent hung around like an unwanted house guest for most of the first half. The Bucs committed two turnovers: one on a pick by Mason Mims and one on downs.
“Like the things that I get upset about when you are controlling a football game are just mental lapses: lack of execution, not just doing simple things well.,” Healy told reporters during his postgame briefing. “And that to me is our football team right now. I told them this in the locker room is that like we have explosive ability in all three phases, but we are not near consistent enough. We have mental lapses that are going to get us beat. They got us beat a week ago and they got us beat on some plays tonight.”
Cleaning things up is pivotal as ETSU prepares to travel down Tobacco Road to face North Carolina this coming Saturday (Noon, ACC Network).
“To me, as you’re moving forward to next week, if you have any of those, they will absolutely suffocate us,” Healy said. “That’s got to be how we practice, that’s how we’ve got to prepare. We can’t have them in practice, we can’t have any in games. The first two games, we’vee had enough to make it uncomfortable.
“My expectation is that if we don’t play perfect, we’re not happy, we’re not content.”
North Carolina will have a huge talent advantage and possesses overwhelming resources compared to the Bucs. At the same time, the Tar Heels are currently wracked by a scandal that has led to speculation that Bill Belichick‘s dismissal could be among the consequences. UNC, as is the penchant of major modern college programs and especially a Bellichick-led team, isn’t talking.
The offense wasn’t perfect Saturday, but it turned in another strong showing. ETSU posted its highest win total since a 52-35 win at Western Carolina last November. ETSU churned out 225 yards on the ground, led by TJ Peyton, who had 121 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
After setting an ETSU single-game record with 33 completions in last week’s loss to Campbell, Mims made 13 of 21 throws on Saturday for 242 yards with three touchdowns and that interception — his first of the season. Mims played his best football in the third quarter, completing all five passes he threw, two of them for touchdowns. In the first half, Mims did find Suderian Harrison on a quick slant that Harrison pulled down and took 55 yards for a touchdown. Otherwise, Mims was 5-for-13 for 38 yards in the first two quarters, although some of those incompletions were dropped passes.
Mims sounded like a seasoned QB1 when asked about the drops: “I mean I wouldn’t say they were drops. I would say they were on me. I’ve got to do a better job executing.”
Healy had discussions with both Mims and Brandon Winton, who had a couple of those aforementioned drops, at halftime:
“I went in the locker room and was like, ‘Hey, Brandon. … You’re an unbelievable football player.’ I mean, we’ve sat in staff meetings and talked about how our whole often should revolve around you and your skill set. Relax. Stop trying to do too much.
“Mason feeling like he’s got to throw the ball through the hoop every single time and our wideouts not really helping him or we’re not protecting him or letting the guy go loose. Whatever it was, it was just kind of just a little bit off kilter and, and I thought we settled down and did some much better things in the second half.”
The results backed that up. The third quarter was arguably the sharpest individual period of the young season for the Bucs. Mims finished 13 of 21 for 242 yards with three TDs. The scores went to Harrison, Winton, and Kingsport native Charlie Browder, who on his TD lined up as an eligible tackle, ran up the middle of the field wide open and scored on an easy 20-yard play.
“Just flush the first half, Mims said. “I mean we know we’re better than that. We know we can execute better than that. But the first half I’m just going out there and playing a game.”
Peyton had a stellar outing from the backfield, reaching triple-digit rushing yardage for the first time in his career. A good chunk of that total came on his 41-yard TD run, a fine individual effort by Peyton, who kept his legs churning as he worked his way down the opposite sideline before he fell into the end zone.
“Y’all saw that I’ve seen for the last three years of TJ Peyton,” Healy said.
Healy also spoke about the challenge defensively of adjusting to Tusculum and its triple option offense, and how little carryover there is for the remaining games on the Bucs’ docket.
“You’re truly changing your defensive philosophy for this game, your structure, everything about it, which will help us in one other game. VMI,” Healy says, adding, “I bet you North Carolina hardly watches any of it. Right? Other than personnel. And so what we did this week is we still had 30 minutes or so of good on good so that we could work on the mishaps from this past week. And so now it will be right back to making sure that we clean that stuff up because again, they [North Carolina] will expose them if we’re in the wrong spot.”
ETSU tacked on a final touchdown with 22 seconds left, a 10-yard scoot by D’Marius Rucker. Even though Healy confirmed that he would have preferred to just run out the clock.
“Rucker looks like Bo Jackson and runs it in,” Healy said. “And guys, I was going to call a challenge and see if we could challenge it to get it on the one and just take a knee.”
Healy also spoke at length about his high level of respect for Tusculum coach Billy Taylor, an ETSU alum who was the longtime defensive coordinator here.
“I got a really cool opportunity to be able to talk to him midfield. He’s just a really humble guy,” Healy said. “You know, Billy actually apologized for the number of questions that I’ve received this week on him. And I told him I thought it was incredible because that guy deserves a ton of credit for this place being built, football being back, what he’s done for this program. I don’t know if there’s anybody more invested in this program than what Billy Taylor is, and I welcome that. I respect that. I respect him as a coach, but I especially respect him as a former football player here. It’s hard to find guys who care about ETSU as much as Billy Taylor does. Got a ton of respect for him and his football team. I thought they played extremely hard. I wish them nothing but the best of luck. The rest of the year, I will be pulling for them. I will do any and everything I can to help Tusculum and Billy Taylor.”