No. 25 Troy Falls to Arkansas State on Senior Day

Thursday, November 17

Troy, Ala.

8:30 p.m.

Troy University

8-2 , 5-1

Arkansas State

6-4 , 6-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Arkansas State

Troy

No. 25 Troy Falls to Arkansas State on Senior Day

11/18/2016 1:55:00 AM | Football

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By: Adam Prendergast

Final Stats | Season Stats | Troy Game Notes | Neal Brown Press Conference | Troy Players Press Conference

TROY, Alabama – Arkansas State scored 35-unanswered points to spoil No. 25 Troy's home finale as the Red Wolves defeated the Trojans, 35-3, Thursday night in Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Arkansas State (6-4, 6-0 Sun Belt) forced five Troy (8-2, 5-1) turnovers, executed a fake punt and held the Trojans to just 262 yards of total offense.

Trailing 3-0 midway through the first quarter, and with just two first downs on its first seven drives of the game, Arkansas State dialed up the fake punt on fourth-and-five from the Troy 40-yard line. Cam Echols-Luper found a wide open Chris Humes for a 31-yard gain, three plays later the Red Wolves found the end zone and took control of the momentum.

On the opening play of the second half, Chris Odom sacked Brandon Silvers and jarred the ball loose, which Humes recovered in the end zone for a touchdown. After a three-and-out by the Trojans, the Red Wolves extended their lead to 21-3 six plays later on a Chad Voytik 4-yard touchdown run.

The lead swelled to 28-3 on Arkansas State's following possession and the Red Wolves capped the scoring with a 16-play, 10:53 drive in the fourth quarter.

Troy scored its only points of the game on a 43-yard field goal by Ryan Kay with one minute remaining in the first quarter.

Emanuel Thompson set career highs with 10 catches and 117 yards receiving to lead Troy. Silvers finished 20-of-39 for 207 yards and two interceptions, while Jordan Chunn rushed for 51 yards on 16 carries.

Kamryn Melton had three pass break ups to lead the Troy defense, while William Lloyd had a game-high nine tackles and three tackles for loss.

Justice Hansen completed 13-of-24 passes for 149 yards and a touchdown for the Red Wolves, and Warren Wand rushed 17 times for 90 yards.

Quotable
"We are always thankful," Troy head coach Neal Brown said. "I always want to be grateful for what we have as a program and we want to be thankful for the people that turned out, especially their fellow students. Win or lose, we're going to go over there. Some of our guys may not like it, but they'll understand it one day. When you get your tail kicked, you own it, you admit what went wrong, and you correct it. That's what we're going to be about."

Notable
• Troy set the Veterans Memorial Stadium single-season average and total attendance records after a crowd of 23,764 against Arkansas State. Troy finished the year with a total attendance of 135,203 and an average attendance of 22,534.

• Three of the top 10 crowds in Veterans Memorial Stadium history came this season.

• Brandon Silvers saw his consecutive games with a touchdown pass streak end at 12 games and Jordan Chunn's streak of games with a rushing touchdown came to an end at seven games.

• Troy's No. 25 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 was the first-ever national ranking in either major poll by any Sun Belt Conference team.

Up Next
• Troy begins a two-game road trip to end the season with visit to Texas State next Saturday (Nov. 26). The Trojans and Bobcats have not met since a 42-28 Troy victory in 2013; Troy leads the all-time series 5-1.

Troy Head Coach Neal Brown Quotes
Neal Brown Quotes

I thought that was a solid tail kicking. They came in here as a conference champion and took it to us in our own stadium. I want to say thank you to the fans that showed up, especially to our students who stayed and stayed throughout the fourth quarter even when the game was in hand. I thought their coaches outplayed us. I thought they were mentally and physically tougher than us. We did not do a good job as a football program, coaches included, of drowning out the noise. I told you that on Monday, 'can we drown out the noise' and I think for the first time we have not answered the bell all season.

At the end of the day, we are 8-2 and we've got one conference loss and we've got to put it to bed. We've got to come back and regroup. I don't think it's hard to regroup. If you turn on this video you're going to see that they lined up, their defense played us man across the board. They physically whipped us up front, covered us in the secondary better than everybody that we've played outside of Clemson and then defensively I thought they took control. I don't think they handled adversity very well defensively at all in the second half. I don't know what that drive was 11 minutes. That's not what we want to be about.

I don't ever like to get my ass whipped, to be honest with you. I think this is going to be a huge learning point for this season. And more so just how we reacted in the second half. I didn't like the way we reacted. We had no fight about us in the fourth quarter. The game of football is so great in a lot of different ways, but it mirrors life and I didn't like the way we attacked and we're not going to be about that. We may not win another football game this year. I don't know. I'm not really concerned about it right now. But we're not going to handle adversity the way we handled adversity in the second half. That is not what we're going to be about as a football program. That is not what our guys are going to represent.

You handled adversity so well all year, what was the difference tonight?
We didn't have any guys that stepped up and made plays. We didn't put them in good enough positions as coaches. That's what it is. Here's the thing too, we've been on this win streak. We've played well. It's been a little bit of a perfect storm as far as why we're sitting here. I knew what was happening. You could see it when you watch it. We've had some fortunate breaks this year. We've made a lot of our own breaks. Tonight, we didn't make any of our own breaks and they made theirs. 50-50 balls, their wide outs went out and made plays. 50-50 balls, our guys didn't. We had a chance to win on one-on-one battles; they did, we didn't. That's the deal. We've got to get some things corrected. Fundamentally, especially offensively, we played so poorly. Falling down on routes, retreating rather than stepping up in the pocket. Our attention to detail offensively, which is a trademark here and has been a trademark here, was madly deficient tonight.

Only 51 yards for Chunn, why was it hard to get him going?
He's beat up. He didn't practice all week. Plus, they beat us. They've got two NFL guys playing defensive tackle. They whipped us up front. He's beat up. I want to be careful with him. He's a junior and didn't practice. He's got two injuries he's dealing with, so I was going to be careful with him regardless in this game.

After the game, you had the guys run over and shake hands with the fans. There was still a good number still. What do you want that to be a teaching point to?
We are always thankful. I always want to be grateful for what we have as a program and we want to be thankful for the people that turned out, especially their fellow students. Win or lose, we're going to go over there. Some of our guys may not like it, but they'll understand it one day. When you get your tail kicked, you own it, you admit what went wrong, and you correct it. That's what we're going to be about.

On Jabir Frye
He'll be out for the season. He tore his ACL tonight. It's really unfortunate for him.

We had several guys injured tonight. That's another thing, we've dodged the injury bug all year and we lost several guys this game. That had no effect on the outcome, let me be clear on that. That had zero effect on the outcome. To be honest, going into this game we were pretty healthy. They've played the same type schedule we have. From this point in the season, if you asked me before the game I would say we're probably in as good of shape as anyone in the country. We lost several during the game, we'll have to evaluate them over the next several days to see where they're at.

Comments on Emanuel saying the motto going into the game was, "in order to be the champion, you have to beat the champion"
They came in here as a champion and they're leaving as a champion. That's it. We haven't earned that right yet. The thing about champions is they're going to fight in battle and I'm not sure we did that tonight. I'm not sure we coached them well enough and we definitely didn't execute well enough. A lot of credit to Blake and his staff. They're defensive coordinator did a great job. Buster, their offensive coordinator did a great job. They controlled the game. It wasn't just us playing poorly. It was just us not executing. They had a lot to do with it. They were really physical tonight and they've been the top of this league. They've been there for a reason. Every time they take the field in a Sun Belt game, they expect to win and they got a little swagger about them and credit to them. I look forward to playing them again.

Troy Player Quotes
Linebacker William Lloyd

On Difference Between 1^st Half and 2^nd Half
They didn't really change much. We just didn't take advantage of plays being made. We had a bad night of tackling, and that's one thing we've been doing in the second half. Missing tackles really hurt us defensively, they just found the end zone off of missed tackles.

On Fatigue
I wouldn't say fatigue played a big factor. It's just assignments and alignments, we were in the wrong place and had a lot of missed assignments. Those plays turned into big plays and that really hurt us.

On Recovering from Loss
Prepare. That game didn't make or break us. We have two games left. We just have to come strong next week and prepare. That game didn't make or break our season, we still can finish strong.

On Fake Punt
That was a big momentum shifter. You know, it's fourth down and short. You get a first down, move the sticks, and give your offense a chance to keep rolling. So, it was a momentum shift that really hurt us. It was a tough pill to swallow, but they just took advantage of plays being made.

What the team can learn moving forward
We just have to finish. That's a big thing. That win just took a lot out of some guys. Those guys didn't play as hard in the second half. We just have to push those guys to finish, because we still have a great chance of doing something special. That one loss didn't make or break our season.

On Effect of National Attention
I wouldn't think so. We look at it as just the next game. Rankings and who you're playing really doesn't matter. We just want to be 1-0 each and every week, we just came up short tonight.

Wide Receiver Emanuel Thompson

On Arkansas State Defense
No, on offense we really beat ourselves. We never really got going and they capitalized when we didn't.

On Mistakes
I made two mistakes early in the game, which probably cost us momentum in the beginning. As a team, we just didn't make the plays that we needed to make. We didn't make the routine plays and that came back to bite us, tonight.

On Rebounding
This game is over. It's behind me, as of now. It's behind the rest of the guys, as well. We'll probably start tomorrow on Texas State.

On Learning from this
You can't start slow. You can't beat yourself. Usually, when you come out and start slow, a team like them will expose you. So what we learned is to not beat ourselves. Even if we were the better team tonight, it didn't show. The played harder, they deserve it.

On Rankings
I don't think so. It was a big stage tonight. I just think we weren't as ready as they were starting off and it bit us. We had the game at 7-3 and they came out after halftime and got a fumble. It changed the game around, we didn't capitalize and it hurt us. Once you crack the rankings like that, they took that to heart. We didn't match their level of intensity.

On Leading the Receiving Corp
Some games you get one, some you get five, some you get ten, and some you get none. So the ball finds you, and when it does you need to be ready for it.

On Elevating Game Next Season
They'll probably win it this year. If you want to be the champs, you have to beat the champs.

On Moving On
That game ruined our chances of one of our goals. But we still have a lot of our goals ahead of us, like the bowl game. We can't let this game get to us too much. We still have two games left and we can still finish 10-2

Quarterback Brandon Silvers

On Arkansas Defense
They did what we planned for, we just didn't execute. We didn't make plays when we needed to. We gave them two fumbles and they just got us.

On Loss
Tomorrow, the sun is still going to rise. We'll still be 8-2 tomorrow. You can lose by 1 or 32, it's still one loss. No one expected us to be 8-2 at this point of the season. We are still bowl eligible and we still have our mind set on winning the last two conference games. We can finish 10-2 and then whatever bowl game we get into. We just have to move past it.

On Locker Room Atmosphere (who leads after a loss)
We all are. You never want to get beat like that in front of your home crowd, especially the way they packed the stands tonight and stayed late. The whole team picked each other up.

On Learning
In big games, you don't have to always make big plays; you just have to execute. Small plays turn into big plays. We just didn't execute.

On Playing "Flat"
We never got in a groove. We normally go up tempo and get first downs after first downs, but we never did tonight.

On Handling Loss
We are playing for something this year. The first two years of being our QB, we haven't been in a position to go to a bowl game. This team knows what's at stake, we know we have to win. We're bowl eligible, not ranked anymore, but we still have to come out and win the last two and finish 10-2.

On Pressure from Lack of Running Game
We're not just a running team, or a passing team, we are all a whole offense. If we don't do good, it's all of our faults, not just one person. It's all one offense.

On National Attention
No not at all. It's just a game. We weren't thinking that just because we were a Top 25 team, we really just didn't think about it. We were just trying to beat Ark State.

On Jordan Chunn
He's a tough guy. He needs a little rest from the short week, after having 31 carries against a good App State defense. He was banged up but he worked through it.

On Jabir Frye's Injury
He was a spark plug for us. He's a speedy guy and we've kept on trying to get him the ball all year. It sucks that he had to go out in the 1^st Quarter. I feel for him, and hopefully he'll have a good recovery and be back with us soon.

On Fans Staying Entire Game
It's been a big part of us winning, our student section. They stayed even when the game was blown out and there were still people in the stands. I really wish we would have put on a better performance for them, but I am proud of them for staying out late. The first two years that I was QB, we would be winning and they would leave at halftime. It just shows how much winning does for your program for them to stay like that.

On Connection with Emanuel Thompson
We've just always had a connection. We had a few back shoulder throws. I just kept throwing to him. I'm always going to go to Emanuel, Deondre, and to those other receivers. We just had a connection tonight, with the back shoulder on the go route. It was good.