** 2018 Opponent Previews: Troy (Game 3) **

Saunders

Saunders

Heisman Trophy Winner
SBNation: Neal Brown is still at Troy!

A bonus year is rare. When you’re a head coach at a mid-major school, and you have two seasons like Brown just had at Troy, you get snatched away by a power conference program. It is a harsh fact of life. Your reward for making a good hire is having to make another one.

2017 record and S&P+ ranking: 11-2 (31st)

Projected 2018 record and S&P+ ranking: 8-4 (78th)

Five key points:

1. Troy went 21-5, with a win over LSU and a near-upset of Clemson, in the last two years, and somehow Brown is back for a fourth year in charge.

2 A lot of faces will change, though. Among them: four-year starting quarterback Brandon Silvers. His 2016 and 2017 backups are both back to fight for the job.

3. No one in the conference could boast the depth Troy fielded last year. That’ll pay off in 2018. Get to know names like RB Jamarius Henderson and WR Tray Eafford.

4. Vic Koenning’s defense was the best in the SBC, and if the line holds up to attrition, the back eight should dominate again.

https://www.sbnation.com/2018/2/14/16999068/troy-football-2018-preview-schedule-roster
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CollegeFootballNews: Troy Trojans. It's Simple - Just Win Every Game

Troy has the coach, it has the systems, and it has the success. Now it has to beat all the bad teams to truly be special. The Trojans managed to beat LSU at LSU. They pushed eventual national champion Clemson in Death Valley in a 30-24 loss early in 2016, and lost last season on the road to a Boise State squad that ended up winning 11 games and the Mountain West title.

They won 21 games and two bowls over the last two seasons, and they took a piece of the Sun Belt championship last year. And they lost to a lousy South Alabama team that won just three other games, scored just three points with the Sun Belt world on the line late in the 2016 season, and managed to lose to a mediocre Georgia Southern squad a few weeks later. Appalachian State and Arkansas State are the fellow stars of the Sun Belt, but this year, Troy has the shot to be something special at an even bigger level, and it starts with the head coach.

https://collegefootballnews.com/2018/06/troy-trojans-college-football

– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players, Key Game, Fun Stats
– What Will Happen & Win Total Prediction
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The Athletic: Troy football makes transition from building to sustaining success

For Neal Brown and Troy, staying here will be much more challenging than getting here.

They sure got here quickly. Brown has coached the Trojans to 21 wins over the past two seasons — only seven FBS teams have won more — and brought home a conference title in his third year as head coach. They got the world’s attention by stunning LSU in Death Valley. Their next challenge is one all rising programs must confront: the complex act of sustaining success.

https://theathletic.com/417865/2018/07/08/troy-football-season-preview-depth-chart-schedule/
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More to come!!!

 
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Pretty much exactly what we want in an out of conference challenge. Veteran OLine and good WRs with an experienced defense. Should be a good test to prepare us for conference play.

 
Caliborn72 said:
Pretty much exactly what we want in an out of conference challenge. Veteran OLine and good WRs with an experienced defense. Should be a good test to prepare us for conference play.
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I feel the opposite way, but I'm mostly focusing on the word "exactly." This is pretty far from exactly want I want for an out of conference game.

If we're going to play a good team, I want it to be one people respect. We gain almost nothing from beating Troy, regardless of what their record was last year. But the odds of losing are higher.

I'd much rather play a team like Washington, UCLA, Miami, or a G5 team that's not as good as Troy (seeing as we're already playing a P5 team).

This is not to say I think we'll lose, but imo exactly what we want is a marquee match up and a couple teams we can trounce to gain confidence.

 
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Whoops, I didn’t see your response. Certainly a fair argument. Mostly, I just want to face good WRs and good front 7s in our out of conference play because I think those are the real tests for us this year. I still don’t trust our corners and our OLine obviously needs to prove it before we can trust them.

 
Xmas32 said:
I'd be very pleasantly surprised if Nebraska held Troy to 17 points.  I wish Nebraska was catching them as the home opener as they're trying to replace a 4 yr starting QB and Brown is a helluva coach.
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I wouldn't want them in the opener as we will have our own bugs to work out, but agree that the later in the season, the more likely they've found a way to replace lost production.

 
Troy plays Boise St first game of the year. That will tell you something.  They played BSU last year also and got beat by 11.  Yes, they beat LSU but I don't think Nebraska will be taking Troy lightly like LSU did.  Troy is a solid team, but don't make them out to be something super great.  Other than LSU there was nothing on their schedule last year that was all that great and they weren't really killing anyone. 

Again not saying they going to be terrible, but don't make them out to be some juggernaut.  They will be a good solid test.  I say 35-17. 

 
NUinID said:
Again not saying they going to be terrible, but don't make them out to be some juggernaut.  They will be a good solid test.  I say 35-17. 
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I get what you're saying. Even with Boise and LSU on the schedule, they had one of the weakest SOS in the country. 

The thing that stands out to me is there offense moved the ball pretty good (6.3 ypp) but didn't score at a very high rate (31.5 ppg). There is a metric out there to try to explain this called IsoPPP. It's not necessary to understand all the details of this, but the idea is to look at how successful a team is on its successful plays as a means of measuring explosiveness. The top two offenses by S&P were Oklahoma and UCF and their respective IsoPPP were 1st and 6th, respectively.

Troy, an 11-2 team with a highly favorable schedule, was only 45th. They just don't get a lot of explosive plays in the passing game.

On the flip side, they were extremely difficult to run against, with only LSU and their massive talent advantage able to do much. It's a true bend but don't break defensive style: stuff the run, surrender passing percentage if necessary, but make them earn it. This is why they are such a dangerous team for P5 opponents. What they lack in sheer explosiveness they make up in efficiency. You can't just capitalize on their mistakes, they make you beat them.

Fun team to watch for fans of quality football.

 
I hope we destroy them, because if we don't we're going to hear about their "Alabama speed" the entire effing game.

 
UCF's D didn't impress me last year, as they gave up a lot of points to just about everyone they played. The notion that they scored so fast that the D was out there a lot, doesn't wash with me. I like it when the D gets the ball right back to the O, so they can score or take time off the clock and wear the other team down. Just spoiled by T O's teams I guess.

GBR!!!

 
huskered17 said:
UCF's D didn't impress me last year, as they gave up a lot of points to just about everyone they played. The notion that they scored so fast that the D was out there a lot, doesn't wash with me. I like it when the D gets the ball right back to the O, so they can score or take time off the clock and wear the other team down. Just spoiled by T O's teams I guess.

GBR!!!
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UCF was 105th in Time of Possession in 2017.  https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/705/p3

If you don't care for that style, you better find a way to get used to it because it is happening.  :thumbs  

We are not going to be milking the clock and running into the line for 3 yards over and over anymore. Times change.

 
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