Troy at Liberty Game Preview

Troy at Liberty

Where: Williams Stadium, Lynchburg, VA

Time: 1:00 pm CT

TV: ESPN3

Spread: Troy -9.5

 

There is a lot of weird around this one.Troy is facing a team that is in its first year of FBS play for the second time in as many years. The Trojans will also be doing so without their starting quarterback this week.

In 2017, Troy played at Coastal Carolina in the Chanticleers first season in the Sun Belt and ran away with the game.

This year, it’s the Flames on the road.

Liberty Profile

Liberty is 2-3 and coming off back-to-back away games in the state of New Mexico. The Flames split the trip against the Lobos and Aggies, averaging 46.5 points per game in the process.

In last week’s 49-41 loss to New Mexico State, the two starting quarterbacks combined for 767 passing yards and yet both teams had a 100 yard rusher.

That’s either a lot of offense or not very much defense.

Hint: It’s the latter.

Liberty has given up 37.4 points per game this year. Take away the season-opening win over Old Dominion and that number balloons up to 44.3.

The Flame defense saw the two extremes while in New Mexico, winning a shootout over run-heavy New Mexico and losing the high scoring contest with air raid New Mexico State.

Liberty has also played against Mason Fine’s North Texas and triple option Army. The only balanced team it’s gone up against is Old Dominion and Liberty won that ball game 52-10.

Troy is no Old Dominion, but it’s notable nonetheless.

In that game with the Monarchs, the Flames had a 300 yard passer, 100 yard rusher and 100 yard receiver.

In fact, quarterback Stephen Calvert has thrown for at least 300 passing yards in four of five games. Receivers Antonio Gandy-Golden and DJ Stubbs both have 400+ receiving yards and the Flames are getting steady production from the running backs, as well.

Frankie Hickson became the primary back after the North Texas game following an injury to starter Kentory Mathews. After a rough start against UNM, Hickson had 155 yards and 6.46 yards per carry against the Aggies last week.

Defensively, Liberty’s biggest weakness is stopping the run. This plays well into the hands of Troy and we’ll get into that.

Liberty has given up 1,306 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns in five games. Not great.

The lack of a rush defense has allowed teams to be more efficient through the air. The Flames have not been able to cause much disruption, either, only registering five sacks thus far.

Liberty also has just 25 tackles for loss, less than half of Troy’s 53.

Speaking of Troy..

Stopping Liberty

The Flames aren’t very good. The offensive numbers look explosive but they haven’t exactly played the best of defenses. Here are the national defensive rankings of Liberty’s opponents:

Team	Total Def	Scoring Def	Run Def	Pass Def
Old Dominion	127	118	116	121
Army	44	36	34	70
North Texas	27	26	13	73
New Mexico	107	100	91	105
New Mexico State	106	124	122	44

Note: Liberty scored a combined 21 points against Army and North Texas.

Troy ranks 64th in total defense, with the pass defense pulling the Trojans back in the rankings.

However, its highly disruptive front seven that is largely responsible for keeping opponents at 25 points per game. Troy is tied for third nationally in sacks with 20 and fourth in tackles for loss.

Living in the Flames’ backfield will limit Liberty’s effectiveness and force Calvert into some questionable decisions.

Troy’s secondary loves questionable decisions. The Trojans have 45 interceptions since the 2016 season began, which ranks second in the country behind only Wisconsin.

Next Man Up

This is the perfect opportunity for Neal Brown to open up the playbook for Sawyer Smith, who’s starting in place for Kaleb Barker after Barker’s season-ending injury.

We’ve already established how porous Liberty’s run defense is. Troy’s surprisingly explosive ground game should take over this game fairly quickly. The Trojans have outscored their opponents 70-21 in the first quarter this season and playing to that tendency would be key for Smith.

Establishing the run game early with BJ Smith and Jabir Frye will allow Brown to test Smith’s downfield passing before the redshirt sophomore faces the remainder of the conference schedule.

That’s not a tall task. Smith has 476 rushing yards and eight touchdowns while Frye is averaging nearly 10 yards per carry.

Prediction

Troy hasn’t lost a road game since game one of 2017. It’s not going to lose this one, either. Liberty has plenty of talent on offense, but it’s been clamped by anyone with a top 100 defense this year. It’ll be the Smith and Frye show in Lynchburg as Smith finds his groove. We’ll even get to see true freshman Gunnar Watson play against an FBS team. 45-24, Troy