Troy tops Bobcats in Trojans’ return to The Vet

It took months of schedule changes, multiple postponements and 37 days since the first FBS game of the 2020 season for the Troy Trojans to finally play in the confines of their own building. Not even an ongoing tornado watch could keep Troy from kicking off against Texas State in the Trojans’ 37-17 season-opening win.

“We’ve played in two away stadiums that were nothing like the atmosphere here,” head coach Chip Lindsey said following the game. “I really believe that. Between the Sound of the South and our fans that were here, season ticket holders and so forth, it was still a great atmosphere. That’s exciting because we’re going to play five more here and that’s a great advantage for us.”

Troy was originally set to open the season with Louisiana-Monroe at home on September 5 but COVID-19 issues with the Warhawks led to the postponement of the game to December. The move gave Troy athletic director Brent Jones a month’s worth of extra time to host a game at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

“We wanted to get 12 games for our student athletes and we wanted to get six home games for our fans,” Jones said after the game. “Overall I’m extremely pleased with how our fans responded and with the whole atmosphere of the game.”

The 10,500 in attendance were treated to an aggressive start that saw Troy jump out to a 23-3 lead behind three Gunnar Watson touchdown passes and a successful onside kick recovery.

“Bryan Blackmon, our special teams coordinator, their job is to always look for opportunities to maybe steal a possession,” Lindsey said. “At that point in the game if they gave us the look that we wanted the way they lined up we felt good about getting it. And then we executed the kick and recovered it.”

Watson set a personal best in passing yards with 338 and in passing touchdowns with four. Three different receivers hauled in a Watson-thrown touchdown, including two touchdowns for Reggie Todd.

After being sacked eight times through the first two games, the only time Watson touched the ground on Saturday was to take a knee out of the victory formation.

“I thought our O-line did a heck of a job with their protection,” Watson said. “(Texas State) brought a little bit of pressure but I thought I had a lot of time today to sit back there and go through my progressions and throw it.”

Lindsey also noted the outing from the offensive line, which featured a new true freshmen starter in Derrick Graham at right tackle.

“Really hats off to the O-line,” Lindsey said. “I thought the O-line was really good tonight in pass protection and the running backs are included in that… As a unit we didn’t have a lot of negative plays and we kept them off Gunnar, which is good.”

True freshman running back Kimani Vidal led the team in rushing and notched his first career 100-yard game with a 108-yard outing on just 12 carries.

Vidal had a 51-yard run in the second half that stands as Troy’s longest play of the season.

“(Vidal) is going to be unbelievable,” Watson said. “He already is. Hand it to him and he’s going to get five or six yards every time. He’s a truck.”

The Trojans allowed just three points in the first half, the lowest a Troy opponent has scored in the first half since Texas State was held scoreless on Nov. 11, 2018. The Bobcats came in averaging 410.8 yards of offense per game but were held to only 254 against Troy.

“We knew we had to step up and redeem ourselves from two weeks ago,” linebacker Carlton Martial said following the game. “We knew we had to get that bad taste out of our mouth. It was good to come out there and get that win.”

Martial led the team with seven tackles and two stops for loss.

Saturday was leg one of a three game home stand the Trojans have scheduled. Troy is currently set to host Eastern Kentucky on October 17.

“We know that we have plenty of battles ahead of us but the exciting thing is we know we’re going to play at home the next two weeks… We got an Eastern Kentucky team coming in next week. I don’t know much about them but I’m sure they’ll be ready to go and excited to play, as well.”

Troy improves to 2-1 on the season and starts 1-0 in conference play for the fourth time in five years. Next week’s game is scheduled to kick off at 6:00 pm on ESPN3.