Troy offense stifled in home loss to Liberty, Malik Willis
Troy fell at home to the Liberty Flames 21-13 on Saturday night.
Liberty scored a touchdown early in the fourth quarter to put a defensive slugfest out of the Trojans’ reach.
Quarterback Taylor Powell completed 18 of 25 passes for 211 yards and a touchdown against one interception as Troy moves to 1-1 on the young season.
Here are our takeaways from tonight’s game:
Battling another NFL draft pick
This is the second time in as many seasons Troy has had to line up against a future NFL draft pick. Zach Wilson carved up Troy every which way last season en route to a 48-7 beatdown in Provo.
Willis projects as a day one pick on a lot of draft boards and looked the part inside The Vet, even though the Trojans fared much better against the next-level competition this time around. He completed the first eight of his pass attempts on the night and added 42 rushing yards in that time frame.
Troy eventually caught on and the front seven began finding its way into the backfield.
The Trojan defense logged 11 tackles for loss in the contest- the second time under Chip Lindsey Troy has reached double digit TFLs- and recorded five sacks.
“When you got an elusive quarterback like Malik Willis you’re going to miss some tackles,” Lindsey said. “But we sacked him several times and really after him pretty good. I was pleased with the defensive effort.”
Willis would end up with 154 passing yards, 93 rushing yards and was responsible for all three Liberty scores. While Willis was more than a handful to contain and picked up several third downs using his own source of athleticism and magic, it was timely stops from Troy that kept the Trojans in the game for a full 60 minutes.
“Overall I thought we executed very well (on defense),” Lindsey said. “I thought we did a decent job containing him most of the time. We did let him out on the edge a couple times when they overloaded us… He’s a hard guy to defend.”
Will Choloh, Jr stands out
Maybe that’s an understatement. The All-Sun Belt pick had himself a game against Liberty’s high octane offense. He ended the day with eight tackles, four tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks.
Choloh is the first Troy player since Jonathan Massaquoi in 2010 to reach four TFLs and 2.5 sacks in a game. On negative plays that involved Choloh Liberty lost a total of 32 yards throughout the game.
“At first (Liberty) was kind of picking up what we were doing,” defensive lineman Will Choloh said after the game. “We got back to the sideline and realized what they were doing and started trying to exploit it and it worked out for us.”
His four tackles for loss is the most in a game any Sun Belt player has had thus far.
Offense struggles to push downfield
Lindsey scripted a beautiful opening possession for the Trojans that resulted in a 75-yard touchdown drive spanning 13 plays. On the final drive, the offense marched 64 yards on nine plays for its second score of the night. Troy tallied up 139 total yards in its two scoring possessions but only 113 in the drives that came in between.
“We got off to a fast start and for whatever reason couldn’t maintain it,” Lindsey said. “And to be honest with you, not sure without looking at the film exactly why that happened.”
Troy averaged exactly 4 yards per play on the drives in between the scores but had three three-and-outs and one turnover in those seven possessions.
“It’s hard to get to playing fast when you’re in second and nine,” Lindsey said. “And that was our biggest problem, being in second and long trying to run the ball on first down or incomplete or whatever it was.”
Troy had just 21 team rushing yards on 24 carries. It’s the first time the Trojans averaged less than a yard per carry since 2011 against Louisiana-Monroe.
The Trojans return to action next week at Southern Miss.