Tennessee Tech Outruns The Citadel to Reach 7-1
Nine passing yards. That is what The Citadel got through the air all afternoon, and it still had a 10-7 lead late in the second quarter. The Citadel ran 39 times for 181 yards and scored on a field goal and a fumble return. Tennessee Tech won 28-13 anyway, because it did the one thing The Citadel could not: throw.
The Citadel went up 3-0 on a 53-yard Evan Kiely field goal in the first quarter, and the lead flipped three times after that. Jax Leatherwood found Tre' Holloway for 13 yards to make it 7-3, then JJ Fludd took a fumble back 78 yards to put the Citadel up 10-7 with 6:40 left in the half. Tech needed 94 seconds to answer, Leatherwood to Holloway again, 52 yards, and Tech never trailed after that.
Tech lost two fumbles to The Citadel's one and still piled up 391 yards to The Citadel's 190. Tennessee Tech's 240 passing yards came on 20 of 25 from Leatherwood. M.J. Flowers ran in from 9 yards early in the third to make it 21-10, and The Citadel's Kiely cut it to 21-13 with a 33-yarder at 5:33 of the fourth. Flowers shut that door with a 27-yard run at 2:12. Flip the fumble return and this is a 28-6 game.
Tennessee Tech is 7-1. The Citadel is 1-5 and has now scored 13 points on a day it outrushed its opponent by 30 yards, which is a fine way to lose and a bad way to be 1-5.
Fantasy-wise, this was the Tennessee Tech show. Flowers had a season-high 31.3 points, Holloway had 29.8 on two touchdowns, and Leatherwood quietly added 20.9. Nobody on the Citadel side topped 8.