Chattanooga Holds Off Winless VMI 24-10 as Taylor Crumedy's 66-Yard Strike Swings the Half

The betting number said this one would be over by halftime. The scoreboard at Finley Stadium said otherwise for most of the afternoon, until Chattanooga finally found the two plays it needed to put away a VMI team that refused to go quietly.

Chattanooga beat VMI 24-10 on Saturday, Oct. 31, on Senior Day in a Southern Conference game that stayed a one-score affair deep into the fourth quarter. The Mocs, listed as 35.5-point favorites on the Fox Sports game page, improved to 6-3 overall and 5-1 in league play. VMI fell to 0-9 and 0-5 in the SoCon, but this was not the Keydets team that got shut out 38-0 at home by ETSU a week earlier, a game Undrafted covered here.

A slow start for the favorites

Chattanooga's first drive looked like the script everyone expected. Kevin Lalin ripped off a 16-yard run, Battle Alberson hit John McIntyre for 11, and the Mocs moved 50 yards in 10 plays. Then Alberson threw into traffic and Robert Powell picked it off at the VMI 6.

What happened next set the tone for the day. VMI took that ball and marched 82 yards in 14 plays, eating 7 minutes and 40 seconds off the clock. Ian Reynolds found completions of 23 and 22 yards to keep the chains moving, the latter to Traveion Slaughter, and Jack Joyce closed it with a 29-yard field goal. A team that had averaged 8 points per game coming in, with six touchdowns all season according to the Fox Sports pregame numbers, led a contender 3-0 after one quarter.

Chattanooga answered with a 10-play, 66-yard drive, helped along by a 28-yard completion from Alberson to Taylor Crumedy. Alberson finished it himself on a 14-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter, and the Mocs led 7-3.

The turning point: a missed kick and 46 seconds

The defining sequence of the game came at the end of the first half, and it started with VMI playing about as well as it has all season.

The Keydets took over at their own 25 and went on a 16-play drive that lasted 9 minutes and 52 seconds. They converted two fourth-and-1 plays along the way, one on a Reynolds keeper and one on a Leo Boehling run, and they kept Chattanooga's offense parked on the sideline for nearly the whole quarter. The drive stalled at the Chattanooga 31, and Joyce's 48-yard field goal try missed with 1:54 left before the break.

Chattanooga needed three plays to make VMI pay. On the third, Alberson found Crumedy behind the defense for a 66-yard touchdown, the longest play of the game. In 46 seconds, a game that could have been 7-6 at halftime became 14-3.

That swing is the difference between a nervous second half and a comfortable one. VMI had dominated possession and still went to the locker room down 11, which is the kind of math that wears on a winless team.

VMI punches back

To their credit, the Keydets did not fold. They took the second-half kickoff and went 75 yards in eight plays, and JoJo Crump capped it with a 40-yard touchdown pass to Zion Trump. Suddenly it was 14-10.

Then Chattanooga handed VMI another opening. Alberson's second interception of the day went to Terry Dorsey, who returned it 22 yards to the Chattanooga 30. With the crowd quiet and the upset very much on the table, the Mocs defense took over. VMI gained 9 yards on its next three snaps, then went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Chattanooga 21. Boehling was stopped for no gain, and the Keydets came away empty.

That stop was the second big swing of the game. Chattanooga turned the field position into a 10-play, 51-yard drive, survived a 7-yard sack by Ethan Haston, and got a 46-yard field goal from Jude Kelley, one of 16 seniors honored before the game, with 1:16 left in the third quarter. It was 17-10.

Closing it out

VMI's next drive reached the Chattanooga 39 before stalling, and Ben Shrewsbury punted into the end zone. From the 20, the Mocs finally put together the kind of drive they had expected to have all day.

Journey Wyche carried it eight times for 47 yards on the march, including runs of 14 and 13 yards. Alberson hit Crumedy for 25 more. Wyche punched in a 3-yard touchdown with 5:18 left, Kelley added the extra point, and the lead was 24-10.

Kam Baah-Slay sealed it on the next possession, intercepting Crump at the VMI 38. Chattanooga ran the final 3:55 off the clock, with a 20-yard run from H. Bey-Buie setting up the kneel-downs.

Star turns

Crumedy was the best player on the field. The receiver caught four passes for 124 yards and the long touchdown, which means Chattanooga's top target accounted for nearly every yard of the passing game. A week after catching three balls for 79 yards at Western Carolina, Crumedy again turned a handful of touches into the plays that decided the game.

Alberson's line will not win any beauty contests. The quarterback completed 5 of 8 passes for 135 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions, and added the early rushing score. But the completions that counted were huge ones, and the Mocs did not need volume.

Lalin led the Chattanooga ground game with 88 yards on 16 carries after a 135-yard, two-touchdown day against Western Carolina, and Wyche's fourth-quarter work closed the door. As a team, the Mocs ran 47 times for 218 yards.

Defensively, Kristian Ozane led Chattanooga with nine tackles, and the unit that came into the day allowing 13.3 points per game held VMI without a point over the final 25 minutes.

For VMI, Isaiah Grevious was everywhere with 10 tackles, Haston had the only sack, and Powell and Dorsey each picked off a pass. Reynolds completed 5 of 6 throws for 71 yards before Crump took over, and the two combined to go 8 of 12 for 124 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Boehling carried 14 times for 40 yards.

Numbers that tell the story

VMI controlled the clock for 32 minutes and 10 seconds, ran 43 times and went 5 of 11 on third down and 2 of 3 on fourth down. That is a blueprint for an upset. The problem was explosiveness. The Keydets averaged 2.7 yards per rush and had one play longer than 23 yards.

Chattanooga had 353 total yards to VMI's 241, won the first-down battle 22 to 15 and converted 6 of 9 third downs. The Mocs were also sloppier than they would like, with two turnovers to VMI's one and five penalties for 35 yards. Without those two interceptions, this probably looks like the blowout the oddsmakers expected. The full numbers are in the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Chattanooga, a win is a win in a league race this tight. The Mocs entered the day tied for second in the SoCon, a half-game behind unbeaten ETSU, with their only league loss a 14-3 decision in Johnson City on Oct. 3. They have now won four of their last five. The bigger questions are about consistency. This is the same team that lost 24-9 at home to Tennessee Tech and 22-17 at Eastern Kentucky in September, and Saturday showed again that the offense can go quiet for long stretches. The Mocs host Mercer for homecoming on Nov. 7, then visit Furman on Nov. 14 before facing Alabama on Nov. 21.

For VMI, the season record still says 0-9, and first-year head coach Ashley Ingram is still searching for that first win. But there is something real to build on here. The Keydets moved the ball, converted on fourth down, forced two turnovers and were a missed field goal away from being in a coin-flip game against one of the better teams in the conference. Next up is a trip to Tennessee Tech on Nov. 7.

Chattanooga now leads the all-time series 22-9-1.

The last word

The Mocs will take the win and move on, but they should watch this film carefully. A week after rolling Western Carolina 41-18, a game Undrafted broke down here, Chattanooga spent three quarters letting a winless opponent hang around. Two big plays from Crumedy and one fourth-down stop made the difference.

VMI, meanwhile, left Finley Stadium with another loss and a little more evidence that the gap is closing. On Halloween, the Keydets nearly pulled off the biggest scare in the SoCon.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, Fox Sports, Chattanoogan.com, and VMI Athletics. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Ray Saldono/GoMocs.com.