Troy University Athletics
Underdog Role Doesn't Bother Trojans
9/16/2008 5:00:00 AM | Football
The Troy Trojans find themselves in a familiar role this week as they prepare to face Ohio State Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.
No one gives the Trojans (2-0) even a sliver of a chance against the mighty Buckeyes (2-1), even though Ohio State struggled in a home win over Ohio two weeks ago and was drilled by the nation's number one team, USC, 35-3 last week.
It's the same old story ? big school from big conference against mid-major from small conference. A mismatch, no contest.
The Trojans hope the Buckeyes buy into that kind of talk.
“We'll try to predict what kind of posture they will take as far as what they think about us, which is probably not very much,” Trojans coach Larry Blakeney said. “I don't think their writers think much of us. The press isn't going to have an impact on Coach (Jim) Tressel or the team, but they will have an impact on what their fans think of us. They are wondering if we are totally out of our league, and we may be, but we are going to go up there and shoot at them for 60 minutes."
The fact that Troy is coming off a 65-0 victory last week in a game where few starters played after halftime, means the Trojans will head to “The Horseshoe” with all guns loaded and ready.
“It's just another game on the schedule,” senior Terence Moore said. “You can't treat them any different than any other team. We've just got to go out there and play our best. The fact that it is Ohio State just makes us more hungry to get a big win for Troy. I am sure they are going to be hungry as well. They have a good football team and they have a good coach.”
But, it is obvious that Ohio State is not any other team. The Buckeyes are a fixture at the top of the college polls and are favored to win their fourth consecutive Big Ten title. OSU has finished among the top five teams in the nation each of the last three seasons and four of the last five years, including a national title in 2002.
Despite their success, the Buckeyes have not fared well against teams from the south, especially teams from Alabama. All-time, Ohio State is only 16-18-2 against teams from the southeastern part of the country, including an 0-4-1 mark against teams from Alabama.
Trojans head coach Larry Blakeney was on the staff at Auburn in 1989 when the Tigers beat the Buckeyes in the Hall of Fame bowl. Assistant coach Shayne Wasden was a member of that Auburn team and had a reception and a pair of punt returns in that game.
Another Troy assistant, Mo Crain, played against Ohio State four times in his career at the University of Iowa. The Hawkeyes won just once, 16-9 in 1989, but Ohio State came into that game with the same national ranking, 13th, it carries into the game against the Trojans this week.
Blakeney said he and his team know how good this Ohio State team is, despite what happened at the Los Angeles Coliseum last week.
“They are a very prideful program with great tradition,” Blakeney said. “They are well coached and have great personnel. They just ran into the best football team I have ever seen on the field. They (USC) may hold the record for NFLers on the field on one team. It looks like they may have 20 out there.
“I know Jim (Tressel) pretty well and I don't think he is a loose his cool type of guy. I think he is going to make sure they are doing their bread-and-butter stuff. They are going to run the power trap and run the passing game off the play action pass, especially with (Todd) Boeckman. I think Coach Tressel realizes what he faced out there on the west coach ? before, during and after ? and I think he will go about business as usual and try to win the game.”
The two big questions the Trojans will have to deal with is whether or not Buckeyes star running back Chris “Beanie” Wells will play in the game, and how much they will see freshman phenom Terrelle Pryor at quarterback. Wells has not played in the last two games for OSU with a foot injury.
“I wouldn't doubt that Beanie would be ready to go, but they do have the Big Ten coming up and I don't how they would consider that,” Blakeney said. “We've just got to prepare for their best and be as good as we can be. That's a challenge for our staff to furnish the best plan that we can, in order to give us the best chance to compete with them, and then our players to execute that plan on Saturday.”
Regardless of whether Beanie plays in the game, or how much the Trojans will have to deal with Pryor, the Troy players are united in their plan to go to Ohio in search of a victory.
“It is the chance of a lifetime,” junior linebacker Bear Woods said. “It is a great opportunity for this program.”
“We've got a lot of veterans on defense and a lot of people who are hungry and want to play Ohio State,” Moore said. “I think that experience will help a lot going into this game.”
For Woods, the game will mark a return to the field for the first time since the season-opener at Middle Tennessee. In that game he recorded 24 tackles, but he did not play against Alcorn State while nursing a bruised foot.
For senior running back Xavier Moreland, the wait to get back on the field has been much longer. Moreland suffered a fractured clavicle early in preseason camp and has not had a chance to play at all this year. At the time of his injury, he had overtaken sophomore DuJuan Harris for the starting job but, since his injury, he has soon both Harris and junior Maurice Greer post 100-yard rushing games.
“I am really ready,” Moreland said. “I have been working hard to get back. The guys have been doing well but I am ready to get back. It was fortunate for us to skip LSU, but this is a big stage and I'm really excited. I am excited to get to play in that big stadium.”
Kickoff for the game between the Trojans and Buckeyes is scheduled for 11 a.m. (CT). The game will be televised by the Big Ten Network with Thom Brennaman handling play-by-play and Charles Davis on color.
Players of the Week: A pair of Trojans picked up Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week honors on Monday for their performances in the game against Alcorn State. Senior safety Sherrod Martin won defensive honors as a result of his three interceptions in the game. Martin, a native of Griffin, Ga., had gone more than 1,000 days since his last interception, which came against FIU in October of 2005. He made up for lost time with three, all in the second quarter, against Alcorn State and now leads the nation in picks.
“I didn't realize it had been since 2005, but I knew it had been a while,' Martin said. “The injuries were a major setback, but getting good results makes you feel like you are doing the right thing.”
Junior kicker Sam Glusman earned special teams honors after setting a new school record for points in a game by a kicker with 17. The Mobile, Ala., native was a perfect 8-of-8 on PAT kicks against the Braves and hit field goals of 23, 41 and 48 yards.
No one gives the Trojans (2-0) even a sliver of a chance against the mighty Buckeyes (2-1), even though Ohio State struggled in a home win over Ohio two weeks ago and was drilled by the nation's number one team, USC, 35-3 last week.
It's the same old story ? big school from big conference against mid-major from small conference. A mismatch, no contest.
The Trojans hope the Buckeyes buy into that kind of talk.
“We'll try to predict what kind of posture they will take as far as what they think about us, which is probably not very much,” Trojans coach Larry Blakeney said. “I don't think their writers think much of us. The press isn't going to have an impact on Coach (Jim) Tressel or the team, but they will have an impact on what their fans think of us. They are wondering if we are totally out of our league, and we may be, but we are going to go up there and shoot at them for 60 minutes."
The fact that Troy is coming off a 65-0 victory last week in a game where few starters played after halftime, means the Trojans will head to “The Horseshoe” with all guns loaded and ready.
“It's just another game on the schedule,” senior Terence Moore said. “You can't treat them any different than any other team. We've just got to go out there and play our best. The fact that it is Ohio State just makes us more hungry to get a big win for Troy. I am sure they are going to be hungry as well. They have a good football team and they have a good coach.”
But, it is obvious that Ohio State is not any other team. The Buckeyes are a fixture at the top of the college polls and are favored to win their fourth consecutive Big Ten title. OSU has finished among the top five teams in the nation each of the last three seasons and four of the last five years, including a national title in 2002.
Despite their success, the Buckeyes have not fared well against teams from the south, especially teams from Alabama. All-time, Ohio State is only 16-18-2 against teams from the southeastern part of the country, including an 0-4-1 mark against teams from Alabama.
Trojans head coach Larry Blakeney was on the staff at Auburn in 1989 when the Tigers beat the Buckeyes in the Hall of Fame bowl. Assistant coach Shayne Wasden was a member of that Auburn team and had a reception and a pair of punt returns in that game.
Another Troy assistant, Mo Crain, played against Ohio State four times in his career at the University of Iowa. The Hawkeyes won just once, 16-9 in 1989, but Ohio State came into that game with the same national ranking, 13th, it carries into the game against the Trojans this week.
Blakeney said he and his team know how good this Ohio State team is, despite what happened at the Los Angeles Coliseum last week.
“They are a very prideful program with great tradition,” Blakeney said. “They are well coached and have great personnel. They just ran into the best football team I have ever seen on the field. They (USC) may hold the record for NFLers on the field on one team. It looks like they may have 20 out there.
“I know Jim (Tressel) pretty well and I don't think he is a loose his cool type of guy. I think he is going to make sure they are doing their bread-and-butter stuff. They are going to run the power trap and run the passing game off the play action pass, especially with (Todd) Boeckman. I think Coach Tressel realizes what he faced out there on the west coach ? before, during and after ? and I think he will go about business as usual and try to win the game.”
The two big questions the Trojans will have to deal with is whether or not Buckeyes star running back Chris “Beanie” Wells will play in the game, and how much they will see freshman phenom Terrelle Pryor at quarterback. Wells has not played in the last two games for OSU with a foot injury.
“I wouldn't doubt that Beanie would be ready to go, but they do have the Big Ten coming up and I don't how they would consider that,” Blakeney said. “We've just got to prepare for their best and be as good as we can be. That's a challenge for our staff to furnish the best plan that we can, in order to give us the best chance to compete with them, and then our players to execute that plan on Saturday.”
Regardless of whether Beanie plays in the game, or how much the Trojans will have to deal with Pryor, the Troy players are united in their plan to go to Ohio in search of a victory.
“It is the chance of a lifetime,” junior linebacker Bear Woods said. “It is a great opportunity for this program.”
“We've got a lot of veterans on defense and a lot of people who are hungry and want to play Ohio State,” Moore said. “I think that experience will help a lot going into this game.”
For Woods, the game will mark a return to the field for the first time since the season-opener at Middle Tennessee. In that game he recorded 24 tackles, but he did not play against Alcorn State while nursing a bruised foot.
For senior running back Xavier Moreland, the wait to get back on the field has been much longer. Moreland suffered a fractured clavicle early in preseason camp and has not had a chance to play at all this year. At the time of his injury, he had overtaken sophomore DuJuan Harris for the starting job but, since his injury, he has soon both Harris and junior Maurice Greer post 100-yard rushing games.
“I am really ready,” Moreland said. “I have been working hard to get back. The guys have been doing well but I am ready to get back. It was fortunate for us to skip LSU, but this is a big stage and I'm really excited. I am excited to get to play in that big stadium.”
Kickoff for the game between the Trojans and Buckeyes is scheduled for 11 a.m. (CT). The game will be televised by the Big Ten Network with Thom Brennaman handling play-by-play and Charles Davis on color.
Players of the Week: A pair of Trojans picked up Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week honors on Monday for their performances in the game against Alcorn State. Senior safety Sherrod Martin won defensive honors as a result of his three interceptions in the game. Martin, a native of Griffin, Ga., had gone more than 1,000 days since his last interception, which came against FIU in October of 2005. He made up for lost time with three, all in the second quarter, against Alcorn State and now leads the nation in picks.
“I didn't realize it had been since 2005, but I knew it had been a while,' Martin said. “The injuries were a major setback, but getting good results makes you feel like you are doing the right thing.”
Junior kicker Sam Glusman earned special teams honors after setting a new school record for points in a game by a kicker with 17. The Mobile, Ala., native was a perfect 8-of-8 on PAT kicks against the Braves and hit field goals of 23, 41 and 48 yards.
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