The Troy Trojans came into came into Centennial Bank Stadium and wanted to show their dominance early against the Red Wolves of Arkansas State. Troy received the kickoff, and they put together a methodical 9 play 76 yard touchdown drive to take an early 7-0 lead.
State's quarterback Jaylen Raynor only had two passes out of 14 attempts that touch the turf today. Bad news, five of those balls went to Troy's defense. On the third play of their first drive, Raynor was trying to connect with Jaquez Cross on a crossing pattern, but safety Grant Barton steps in front of Cross and intercepts the ball at the 37 yard line. On 2nd down and 9 from the 19 yard line quarterback Goose Crowder connects with receiver Zeriah Beason for a touchdown on an out pattern in the endzone to take a 14-0 lead with 2:00 left in the 1st quarter.
The Wolves settled down and put together a 7 play 75 yard drive that ended with a 7 yard touchdown run by Cross (26-273 yards) to cut the lead 7 points, 14-7. The defense forced Troy to punt on the next drive for a touchback. On the 1st play, Cross took the handoff, went between the right guard and tackle and went 80 yards for another touchdown to tie the game at 14. It stayed that way for the rest of the half.
The bending defense did not break the rest of the game as the Trojans could muster up 3 field goal attempts, making only one of them which help the Wolves in the victory. Troy added a pick 6 by LJ Green as they led 24-14 after three quarters.
The 4th quarter, the Wolves would get a 25 yard touchdown run by halfback Zak Wallace to cut the to three 24-21. The next drive for the Wolves put together an 8 play 55 yard drive, but it stalled and they settled for a 41 yard field goal by Aiden Ellison to tie the game at 24 with 2:36 left in the game. Troy would drive the ball, but Crowder makes a mistake throwing into double coverage and safety Justin Parks picks the ball off and returns into Trojan's territory with 1:12 left Cross would take the ball down to the 13 yard line. Cross would run three more times down to the 4 yard line, but had to settle for a 21 field field goal to take the lead 27-24 with 36 seconds to go.
Troy had to use all their timeouts on defense to give themselves time. They converted a 4th down to get midfield, and the game ended on a hail-mary pass that was knocked away in the endzone.
The Troy Trojans continue to struggle on the road as they traveled to Jonesboro to take on Sun Belt divisional foe Arkansas State and came back with a third straight conference loss.
The Trojans got out to a promising 14-0 start in the 1Q but were unable to capitalize on Arkansas State turnovers and the work the defense was putting in. Troy turned Arkansas State over 5 times on interceptions but were only capable of producing 371 yards of total offense including Damien Taylor's worst rushing performance of the season with 88 yards on the ground.
This game follows a recent trend for the Trojans as this marks the third straight conference loss by one possession scores. The Trojans fall to 3-5 (2-3 in conference) and find themselves needing to win the next three games to even have the chance to play in a bowl game. After the game we caught up with Coach AUChase and he told us "Tough loss. I believe the coaching staff let the team down this weekend. We minimized turnovers and the players did what we asked of them but the coaches didn't trust the gameplan. I don't want to scout us for future opponents but there's a correlation between the increase in passing attempts and decrease in rushing attempts. We (I) didn't believe in the gameplan. There's no reason to lose a game where you get 5 interceptions including a defensive touchdown."
This week Troy "enjoys" a bye week as well as a trip to Georgia Southern. The Trojans also have to still find a way to travel to Texas A&M and hopefully spring an upset. The win total goal being met as well as eligibility looks bleak but the team will have to continue on fighting.
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