Troy Travels to Atlanta for Black Friday Clash

TROY, Alabama – Coming off its first bye week since September, Troy heads to Atlanta for a clash with Georgia State on Black Friday in the Georgia Dome. Kickoff between the Trojans and Panthers is scheduled for 1 p.m. (CST) and the game will be broadcast on ESPN3.

The Troy Sports Radio Network will have full coverage of the game beginning with the pregame show at 11 a.m. on the full 16-station network.

The off week was welcomed with open arms by the Trojans, who had played seven straight games since their last break in the schedule. Troy (3-7, 2-4 Sun Belt) enters this weekend's game with a pair of wins in its last four games, with the two losses coming to a pair of one-loss Sun Belt teams – Appalachian State and Georgia Southern.

"The bye week was good for us, it was productive," Troy head coach Neal Brown said. "We got a couple of things accomplished. Number one, we got a little banged up. We're not an overly deep football team and coming out of that (Georgia) Southern loss we were beat up, so we rested. We only practiced twice during the bye week. We had a long scrimmage Thursday night with all of our guys that are redshirting or on the scout team, which was productive."

Troy has won both games in the series, but will be facing the best Georgia State (4-6, 3-3) team to date. The Panthers have won back-to-back games against Texas State and South Alabama, which followed narrow losses to UL Lafayette (two points) and Arkansas State (14 points).

"Georgia State is playing the best football they've played all year," Brown said. "Over the last five weeks, they've put on a run of playing really good football, the best in the history of their program really. They've had three wins and two really close losses. One of the losses, I'm not sure the loss to Arkansas State wasn't the most impressive game they've played. They played them closer than anyone else in our league has."

The Trojans are one game removed from a run of three contests where they scored 144 points. Running back Brandon Burks is 167 yards shy of becoming the eighth player in school history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season and the first since Shawn Southward in 2012.

The other key part of the offense is the passing and catching duo of quarterback Brandon Silvers and wide receiver Teddy Ruben. Silvers has completed 62.3 percent of his passes with 14 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Ruben has been on the receiving end of 51 of Silvers' 160 completions, which is more than double anyone else on the team – he has six touchdown receptions on the season and is averaging 121.3 all-purpose yards per game.

The Troy defense will have the daunting task of facing the nation's 10^th ranked passing attack, which is averaging 344.5 yards per game through the air. The play of bandit Tyler Roberts and defensive end Rashad Dillard will vital to the Trojans success. The duo has combined for 19.5 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks on the year; Georgia State has struggled protecting the quarterback with 25 sacks allowed.

Roberts needs just 1.5 tackles for loss to tie Osi Umenyiora for second all-time in school history with 38.5 for his career. The senior from Hoover, Ala., has picked up 1.5 tackles for loss in a game five times this season, the most since DeMarcus Ware (2004) and Jonathan Massaquoi (2011) posted the same number.

Georgia State quarterback Nick Arbuckle ranks fifth nationally averaging 344.6 passing yards per game, while freshman wide receiver Penny Hart is 20^th in the country with 92.8 receiving yards per game.

As prolific as the passing game as been, the Georgia State rushing game has struggled with just 94.3 yards per game. Demarcus Kirk leads the Panthers with 35.4 yards per game to go with a pair of touchdowns.

Defensively, the Panthers have played well of late allowing 17.3 points over their last three games compared to their 31.3 average for the year. All-Sun Belt linebacker Joseph Peterson leads the way with 90 tackles plus six tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks.

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Players Mentioned

Brandon Burks

Rashad Dillard

Tyler Roberts

Teddy Ruben

Brandon Silvers