CHATTANOOGA---Gerry Pacitti doesn't need reminders to push harder, but he keeps one taped to his office wall anyway. 

"It was said after we played the Citadel that 'we got pushed around'. That's posted on my wall, and I look at it every day," Pacitti said. "That's a direct reflection of me. I took it personal." 

For the Chattanooga Mocs' assistant athletics director for athletic performance, those words marked a turning point. The Mocs had lost veteran leaders to the transfer portal after the 2024 season, leaving a roster thin on experience and even thinner on physical readiness. Pacitti knew something had to change, and fast. 

"We didn't have a roster of the people that we thought we would have," he said. "We had a bunch of incoming freshmen that were very young and not ready physically to play at the FCS level." 

The challenge was clear. The response was even clearer.  

"Our goal was to get them bigger, stronger, faster...as big as we could get them," Pacitti said. "And we saw massive gains in both strength and size in a lot of those guys." 

Building from the Ground Up 

With roster turnover and a wave of inexperienced players, Pacitti and his staff overhauled both the training program and the approach to nutrition. "We put an emphasis on adding as much lean mass as we could," he said. "A lot of those numbers went up — squat, bench, deadlift, power clean — from doing that." 

Without a dietitian for a stretch in the spring, Pacitti took matters into his own hands.  

"It was kind of myself and this department doing the strength & conditioning, running the nutrition station, ordering the food, stocking it and giving advice," he said. "If their weights weren't trending upward, they had to come in here at 6:30 in the morning and eat peanut butter and jellies that we made for them at 4 o'clock." 

It wasn't punishment for punishment's sake; it was about building habits. "If you're disciplined to do the things you don't necessarily want to do, then you have the freedom. That meant I don't need to see you here at 6:30 in the morning," Pacitti said. "We made things difficult to where they had to adapt, or they weren't going to get to where we needed them to be." 

The training philosophy shifted, too. Mondays and Fridays became maximum effort days, with variations and pushing to their top set. Tuesdays and Thursdays emphasized speed work and dynamic effort.  

"We made an investment into velocity units to monitor how fast they were lifting," Pacitti said as he noted a word of thanks to Vice Chancellor for Athletics Mark Wharton. "That gave us another real indicator of where they were at on that day because things don't move in a linear fashion." 

The results were obvious . Freshmen who arrived undersized were adding serious weight and strength. "Amari Matthews came here, he's 150-something pounds. He's almost 170 right now," Pacitti said. "If you just try to do right in this program, you're going to be successful." 

Fueling the Gains 

Pacitti's approach to nutrition was simple and direct. "The same exercises that you use to get bigger are also going to be the same ones that you use to lose weight," he said. "It just depends on the caloric intake that goes alongside with it." 

For players gaining weight, the prescription was clear. "If you're 200 pounds and you want to be 220, you need to eat 220 grams of protein a day," Pacitti said. "You can do that by adding 500 calories to your diet a day. It's not that difficult." 

For those needing to slim down, the solution was early mornings and steady work when the initial work did not provide needed results. "They had to be here at 6:30 a.m., and do 40 minutes of zone two cardio," he said. "We had to get more calories out of them than they were taking in." 

Supplements played a role, too, specifically creatine. "Creatine is one of the most studied supplements on the market," Pacitti said. "We're not able to get it naturally by feeding our guys filets and strips," Pacitti said. "We advocated for creatine. The kids using it saw good results.  

"But you still have to put the work in." 

The key was balance and adding mass without sacrificing performance. "We're always looking at a 3-to-1 ratio of lean mass per fat," he said. "If you had four pounds and three-quarters of that is lean mass, that's good." 

Finding the Right Fit 

Setting goal weights wasn't about chasing arbitrary numbers; it was about finding each player's optimal range. "It's very hard to play in the Southern Conference if you're a skill player at anything below 170 pounds," Pacitti said. "Physically, they won't last." 

He pointed to examples across the roster. "DJ Adams has gained 35 pounds over his time here and he's become way more durable." 

For linemen, size had to match the demands of the position. "If they're 6'4, they should be probably in that 290 to 300 range," he said. "We don't get a lot of guys that we recruit that are too big to move. We typically get a guy like Aidan Donald who has now added 40 pounds since he got here. Bryce Washington has gone from 210 to 230 (at linebacker)." 

And sometimes, Pacitti prefers players to err on the heavier side before camp. "You'd rather have them a little bit heavier so they have something to lose rather than be too small," he said. "Otherwise, we're looking at skeletons by the time week zero rolls around (because of the August heat)." 

Culture, Accountability and a Chip on the Shoulder 

The physical transformation was matched by a renewed focus on accountability.  

"We gave them all a training partner," Pacitti said. "If we were partners, and I had to wait for you to show up, that would irritate me. So, we created a little bit of animosity to that where they had to be accountable to each other." 

Collaboration with head coach Rusty Wright was central to that culture. "Coach Wright has been unbelievable to work with," Pacitti said. "We've always had a collaborative thing." 

The commitment to the Mocs strength and conditioning is nothing new in the Wright Era. It's always been a focus and only heightened since Pacitti's arrival in June 2021. The change was solely in the group recognizing the need to change in changing times.  

This change is about growth…and growth is what they got. 

Top Gainers (+10 lbs.) 

19.0: WR Ashton Schumann 

18.0: DT Isaiah Harvey 

17.0: OL Lawson Wade, DB AJ Wallace 

16.0: DE Anton Ricumstrict 

14.0: LB Bryce Washington 

13.0: DT Mekhi Bell, DT Nate Carter 

12.0: TE Hayne Tobias, DT Myles Mays 

11.0: RB Kevin Lalin 

10.0: TE Will Jackson-Linkhart, LB Zion Rutledge, DB DJ Adams 

11 of the 14 double-digit gainers joined the program in the last 12 months

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