Troy Trojans look to bounce back with home opener Saturday
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Troy, AL – Troy head coach Neal Brown spoke to the media Monday for the Trojan’s weekly press conference. The Trojans open up at home Saturday against Charleston Southern.
Troy fell to N.C.State 49-21 on Saturday in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Trojans are 53-17 at home since moving to the FBS level in 2001.
Here’s what head coach Neal Brown had to say on Monday:
Recapping North Carolina State, they are what I thought they were going to be, a real good football team. Length, across the board, if you look at them in pregame warm ups, that didn’t take you very long to figure it out. I thought they were very well coached. They will be a contender in the ACC for sure. I believe that. They will have a strong season. I think we can learn a lot from (NC State). If you look at them, they are in year three. They had one penalty for the whole game. Zero turnovers. Those are signs of not only a well-coached team, but also a disciplined team. They had a lot of veterans playing and I thought that showed.
Our special teams player of the week was Taylor Polk. He had eight punt snaps, did a tremendous job. Our operation times on the punts were extremely quick. I think our specialists in general, our kickers, punters, holders, snappers, I thought they did a nice job in the game. Obviously we punted a lot in the game so they got a lot of practice. I thought we were solid in our punt coverage. We have to field the ball better on our punt return, but I thought we had a solid night against a good outfit on special teams.
Defensively I thought we gave a good effort. I thought we competed, competed hard. They had to play too many snaps. That’s a combination of offensively not converting third downs and then us not stopping them, especially in the first half; they had three successful fourth down attempts. We didn’t fit the run extremely well. We have to do a better job up front, fitting runs, but we gave up very few big plays. I think if we continue to do that as the season progresses, we’re going to have, we will be pleased. I thought our new guys on defense, Demetrius Cain, we named him of defensive player of the week. He graded out at 86 percent, had five tackles, two assists and only had one missed assignment, which is huge for someone playing their first Division I football game. I thought several of our newcomers got in there and competed, and played at a good level. They will continue to get better.
Offensively, we had two turnovers. That is something we have really stressed. Obviously, the hit on (Brandon) Silvers, that is a little bit understandable, as far as fumbling the ball right there, not that it is ever condoned, but it is understandable. Then the pick, we have to make a better decision at quarterback on that interception when we’re going in to score at the end of the game. Third downs are inexcusable. We didn’t make enough plays on third down. We have to continue drives. That’s one of the reasons our play number was so low. We didn’t do a good job of making plays on third downs. On a positive side, we had zero offensive penalties. That’s another one of our goals, to have few penalties. We had a number of explosive plays. The guys that we are counting on to make plays, Bryan Holmes, Brandon Burks, Brandon Silvers, those types of guys had big games. We will continue to need that as we move forward.
Obviously we are fired up about our home opener. Our guys, I think that’s one of the things we need to continue take a step forward in our program, we need to defend our home turf and that will begin Saturday night. We are expecting a good crowd. I appreciate everyone in the Dothan, Montgomery and Troy area to come out and support us and our guys. If you watched the game on TV, I’ve been preaching this; we’re going to play the right way. There are some areas we need to improve on, but we’re going to play the right way and we are going to compete and be exciting to watch.
Touching on Charleston Southern, I think they’re a solid football team. I think the first thing you look at is that they are a winning program for the past two years: 8-4 last year, with two of those losses from Division I opponents in the SEC, Georgia and Vanderbilt. I think they went 10-3 the year before. They are very experienced: nine offensive returners, eight defensive returners. They had big wins last year against Liberty and Charlotte. Charlotte just beat one of our conference teams, Georgia State, on Friday. They had a really close loss – I think 21-20, at Vanderbilt. Offensively they are very unique system. They’re option-oriented team, something that we haven’t seen in a live situation. The quarterback is Austin Brown, senior, dual-threat. He threw the ball really well at the end of last season, and he can run. They have two really good running backs. Number two, Ben Robinson, he is a fast guy, very quick. He’s going to be an issue for us to tackle. Then they have a strong guy, Darius Hammond, who is also their punt and kick off return guy. He had a couple of returns for touchdowns; he’s a strong guy. I think the strength of that offensive unit is their offensive line. They are all returning starters and they do a good job within their scheme, their run-based scheme. Defensively, they are a base three-down team. Like I said, they have eight defensive starters returning on a team that led the Big South Conference in almost every single defensive category. They created a lot of turnovers. They are going to come and play with a lot of emotion, and I think that’s what I see on film and I expect nothing less than that. Special teams wise, they have a really good punter, a rugby style. We have to field the ball better than we did a week ago. A solid team and we’re looking forward to competing with them.
Perception of the offensive line…
I was really excited with Deontae Crumitie. For a true freshman, in that type of an environment with a defensive line with a lot of experience and size and length, I’m really encouraged with his play. I’m really encouraged with Johnathan Boring’s play at right tackle, getting his first start of his college career. I thought he did a lot of positive things. I thought he did a good job in protection. We have to get better as a unit up there on pad level. Dalton Bennett played a solid game. Antonio Garcia is a guy that I have a lot of confidence in, a lot of expectations. He had about four or five negative plays that really hurt us, but the rest of them he showed signs of a guy that is an all league type of player. And we only played five. Luke Lawrence did a solid job. He needs to get his pads lower, but he did a really good job communicating. I thought he got loud in there a couple times, which is good.
On what is the biggest thing he learned about his team…
I didn’t think they backed down. Sometimes, you get in those atmospheres – it was a good atmosphere, a good crowd, right around 60,000. It got loud, especially when we made it a game in the third quarter, and the end of the second quarter. It got loud and I thought our kids really stepped up. I was proud of our defense coming back. They had to play in a lot of plays. Plenty of times to give in, but they showed character and discipline. We played a much better second half as far as discipline, getting aligned, fewer mental mistakes.
