Quick takeaways from Troy’s 47-42 loss to Southern Miss

The Troy Trojans dropped a home contest with budding rival Southern Miss on Saturday night, 47-42, in Chip Lindsey’s first FBS game as a head coach.

It was a barn burner that cleared the Over/Under by 40 points. In the fourth quarter alone, the two teams combined for 42 points. Troy quarterback Kaleb Barker and Southern Miss quarterback Jack Abraham combined for 967 passing yards. A 51 yard double-pass ran by the Golden Eagles pushed the combined total up over 1,000 yards.

It was a wild, hard fought game that gave us a lot to take away from.

THIS is a NASCAR offense

No, national media number 228, Neal Brown did not run a NASCAR offense in Troy. What was witnessed today inside Veterans Memorial Stadium, however, was pretty damn close to a NASCAR offense.

Troy’s offense moved so quickly that the chain gang was behind their own sticks on several occasions. With all the gaudy numbers put up by both offenses, the most surprising stat may be the number of plays Troy ran: 59. Just 59 plays.

The Trojan offense was only on the field for 24 minutes and 49 seconds, though. That works out to a play ran roughly every 25 seconds. Over the course of a full game, this is pretty quick.

The low number of plays for a quick offense that scored 35 against Southern Miss points to one positive: big plays. Troy had nine plays of 20-plus yards on Saturday. The offense had just one redzone score. The other four touchdowns were all deep passes from Barker to three different receivers.

The receiving corps is terrifying

This group is absolutely nuts. Through two games, Troy’s receivers have six 100-yard games from five different receivers. Despite losing each of 2018’s top three pass catchers, this group may be even better.

The five receivers who have exploded out of the gate are not a surprising group. Tray Eafford and Luke Whittemore are the top returning receivers and Reggie Todd, Kaylon Geiger and Khalil McClain are the junior college transfers.

Geiger, Whittemore, Eafford and McClain all eclipsed 100 receiving yards against Southern Miss. In case you are wondering, that is easily an FBS school record. The previous record was two different receivers with 100 receiving yards in the same game, done multiple times since 2001.

Barker became the first Troy quarterback ever to throw for over 500 yards in a game when he threw for 504 on 29 completions (17.4 yards per completion) thanks to the receivers being able to get open whether they actually were or not.

Offensive line struggles, run game thins

It seemed like Barker had to roll out every other play to avoid pressure, which makes his 504-yard performance even more impressive. Barker was sacked four times, however, including once on a big fourth quarter third down attempt.

The run game was also completely shut down from the start. Troy ran the ball just eight times in the first half for a grand total of -4 yards. The Trojans would finish with just 24 rushing yards on only 1.5 yards per carry.

To make matters worse, star running back BJ Smith left the game in the first quarter with an apparent leg injury and was later spotted with a large brace on. Running back Jabir Frye also exited the game, which left Troy with DK Billingsley. The sophomore was solid, gaining 41 yards on nine carries.

Troy’s 24 team rushing yards was the lowest mark since 2013 when the Trojans amassed -13 yards against Ole Miss on 22 carries.

The defense has seen better days

I decided to throw the whole unit together under this one subheading because, well, it was all bad.

Not only did the secondary’s youth and inexperience rear its ugly head, but the group looked wholly unprepared and completely outmatched from a speed standpoint.

Some of that is personnel, some of that is coaching. Southern Miss should not be able to repeatedly run the same drag route for chunk gains throughout the night. There were times where there was not a Troy defensive back in the same area code as the wide receiver.

Golden Eagle receiver Quez Watkins had 209 receiving yards on just seven catches in his season debut. Jaylond Adams had 180 yards on 11 catches. It didn’t help that the front seven hardly ever pressured Abraham, who had a clean pocket most of the night.

Travis Sailo had Troy’s only sack of the night. The unit produced just three other quarterback hurries.

Troy held the Southern Miss run game to just 2.8 yards per carry on 40 rushes, though, which is mostly good. Southern primarily ran on short down and distances, though, which led to a mixed bag of results.

Carlton Martial one-upped his career day against Campbell with 16 tackles and 4.5 tackles for loss on Saturday night. He accounted for over half of Troy’s tackles for loss and was the lone bright spot on that side of the ball.

The most concerning fact through two games has yet to be discussed, though. The Troy defense came into the season with more takeaways in the last three seasons (87) than any other Sun Belt team, but this year’s edition has failed to force a turnover through the first 120 minutes of the season.

On the bright side, the offense has been clean, with just one turnover so far and none against Southern Miss.