Walton Alum Gives No. 1 Team a Scare

alumnus J.J. Jackson had the best game of his junior season Saturday for Tennessee-Chattanooga.

The backup running back ran for 56 yards on 11 carries, both season highs, including a 20-yard run for his first touchdown of the season and fourth of his college career as the Moccasins lost on the road to top-ranked Georgia Southern in Statesboro, 28-27.

Jackson also caught a pass for six more yards as Chattanooga, ranked 23rd in the country in the Football Championship Subdivision of Division I heading into the game, staged a furious second-half comeback but lost on a failed two-point conversion with less than two minutes left in the game, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.

Jackson had a 10-yard run for a first down at the 5-yard line to set up the Mocs' final touchdown on the next play.

“Like Coach (Russ Huesman) told us at halftime,” Jackson said in post-game comments released by the university’s sports site, GoMocs.com, “we could either stop fighting or keep fighting. We decided to keep fighting and take what the defense gives us."

The game was like a mini-Raider reunion. In addition to Jackson, another junior from Walton, defensive back Robert Harrison, came off the bench to play for the Mocs. Two redshirt freshmen from Walton, center Matthew Gilbert and offensive tackle Oliver Kraemer, stood on the opposite sideline for the top-ranked Eagles.

Georgia Southern, now 5-0 overall and 4-0 in the Southern Conference, also has a junior defensive tackle from East Cobb, grad Zach Reckers, and a sophomore quarterback from Northeast Cobb, alum Jerick McKinnon.

Chattanooga (2-4, 0-3) also has sophomore wide receiver Marlon Anthony from Northeast Cobb's , who lives in the Acworth area.