Troy is Back – Trojans Down Ohio in Dollar General Bowl

Friday, December 23

Mobile, Ala.

7 p.m.

Troy University

10-3

Ohio

8-6

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Ohio

Troy

Troy is Back – Trojans Down Ohio in Dollar General Bowl

12/24/2016 1:53:00 AM | Football

Box Score Final Stats Season Stats Game Notes Photo Gallery (1)Photo Gallery (2)Neal Brown Press Conference Players Press Conference Highlights Photo Gallery (3)

By: Adam Prendergast

Game Stats | Season Stats | Game Notes | Photo Gallery (1) | Photo Gallery (2) | Photo Gallery (3) | Neal Brown Press Conference | Players Press Conference

MOBILE, Alabama – Jordan Chunn rushed for three touchdowns and the Troy defense forced five Ohio turnovers as the Trojans defeated the Bobcats, 28-23, in the 2016 Dollar General Bowl Friday in Ladd-Peebles Stadium.

Troy finished the season 10-3 marking the first time in the school's FBS history that it reached the 10-win plateau. The Trojans finished with a six-win improvement from last season which is tied for the best turnaround in the country.

The Trojans never trailed in the game thanks to Chunn's record-breaking night and a stout defensive performance led by Dollar General Bowl MVP Justin Lucas. Chunn set a Troy bowl record with his three rushing touchdowns, while his first touchdown of the night was the 35^th of his career which set the all-time Troy rushing touchdown record.

Lucas recorded one of Troy's four picks in the game in addition to tallying five tackles, a tackle for loss and two quarterback hurries. The Trojans held the Bobcats (8-6) to just six points in the second half and 78 rushing yards in the game; it marked the sixth time this season that Troy has held an opponent under 100 rushing yards.

Troy jumped out to a 28-17 lead on Chunn's third touchdown of the game with just under six minutes to play in the third quarter.

The Bobcats drove into Troy territory on their next three possessions, but would have to settle for a pair Louis Zervos field goals on three attempts to close Troy's advantage to 28-23 with 4:01 to play in the game.

Troy moved the ball to its own 42-yard line on the ensuing possession – the Trojans ran 89 seconds off the clock and forced Ohio to burn its final two timeouts of the game in the process.

Following a 42-yard punt by Ryan Kay, Ohio took over on its own 15-yard line with 2:20 to play. The Bobcats picked up one first down before the Trojans forced three straight incompletions and closed out the game with a fourth-down stop.

The Trojans wasted no time getting on the board as Brandon Silvers connected with Deondre Douglas for 47 yards down to the Ohio 1-yard line on Troy's first offensive play of the game. Chunn punched it in on the next play at the Trojans led 7-0 just 1:26 into the game.

Ohio answered two possessions later to tie the game at 7-all before Chunn capped an 11-play, 65-yard drive with a 3-yard touchdown to give the Trojans a 14-7 lead after the opening quarter.

Chunn rushed for 56 yards on 20 carries, while Silvers finished 24-of-41 for 235 yards and a score through the air. Douglas finished with six catches for a career-high 113 yards, while Emanuel Thompson caught eight passes for 83 yards.

Kris Weatherspoon and Trevon Sanders both recorded the first interceptions of their Troy careers, while Cedarius Rookard picked off his third pass of the season. The Trojans were in the Bobcat backfield most of the night with six quarterback hurries, two sacks and five tackles for loss.

Zervos pulled the Bobcats within four, 14-10, with a 33-yard field goal early in the second quarter, but Troy answered with an 11-yard touchdown pass from Silvers to Thompson with 4:52 to play in the half.

Jordan Reid, who finished with 12 catches for 162 yards, closed the gap to 21-17 at the half with a 5-yard touchdown catch with 59 seconds to play in the half.

Greg Windham completed 23-of-47 attempts for 315 yards and two touchdowns, but threw four interceptions. Windham also led the Ohio rushing attack with 24 yards and 10 carries.

Quotable
"We showed up and represented well and I'm very proud to represent the Sun Belt Conference. Our league is 4-1 in bowl games right now, which speaks to the level of play in our conference," head coach Neal Brown said. "This is the first time in Troy's Division I history that we've won 10 games and that's something that the 16 seniors on our football team will always be proud of."

Stat Geek
Brandon Silvers moved into fourth place in Troy history with 23 touchdown passes after throwing one against Ohio. He also moved into fifth place on the single-season passing yardage list 3,180 and fourth place on the single-season completions list with 293.

Notable
• The 51 combined points between the teams is the lowest-scoring bowl game in Troy history; the previous low was Troy's 34-21 loss in the 2004 Silicon Valley Bowl.

• Jordan Chunn set the Troy career rushing touchdown record in the game as he found the end zone on Troy's second offensive play from scrimmage; Chunn now has 37 rushing touchdowns in his career.

• Jordan Chunn's 18 points scored tied for the most in a bowl game in Troy history (DuJuan Harris, 2010 GMAC Bowl; Tebiarus Gill, 2010 New Orleans Bowl).

• Troy held Ohio to just 78 rushing yards in the game, which ranks as the second lowest in Troy's bowl history.

• Troy intercepted four passes in the game and finished the year with 22 interceptions, which ranks fifth in school history and second in Troy's FBS history. Troy's 22 interceptions rank as the second most currently in the FBS.

2016 Dollar General Bowl – Troy vs. Ohio
Troy Postgame Quotes

Head Coach Neal Brown
Opening Statement:
"I first want to coach [Frank] Solich and his staff on a tremendous year; they competed hard tonight. They've been in a ridiculous [amount] of close games [this season] and we didn't feel good about this game tonight until the very end.

"I'm extremely proud of our guys. In a lot of ways, tonight, was a microcosm of our season. We stand here at 10-3 and to be honest with you, it wasn't always pretty; we've won a bunch of different ways. Tonight, we came out and were in a flow offensively [early on] and then we get a freak deflection that ends up being a touchdown. We gave [Ohio] some yards due to penalties and gave up a bunch of yards defensively. In the second half, we came out struggling offensively, but defensively, we got a turnover that was really the turning point in the game. We showed up and represented well though and I'm very proud to represent the Sun Belt Conference. Our league is 4-1 in bowl games right now, which speaks to the level of play in our conference.

"This is the first time in Troy's Division I history that we've won 10 games and that's something that the 16 seniors on our football team will always be proud of."

On the difference turnovers played in the game:
"They were huge. I was telling our radio guy before the game that the key to the game was going to be turnovers. I have said throughout the week that it's rare that you see really clean games during the bowl season. The reason is we have three weeks in between our last game; there's a lot of travel involved, finals involved and you also have a lot of off time that you don't have during the season. I always feel that it comes down to special teams and turnover margin. We won the turnover margin tonight and we were able to turn those into points, three of them into touchdowns. Our defense set us up on a short field a bunch tonight and we've won that way this season a lot. We have some really good players on the offensive side of the ball, but we've really won this season because of our defense and special teams."

On what role defensive coordinator Vic Koenning has played in the success of the defense this season:
"Hiring Vic Koenning was a huge key for me when I got this job. If you look at the defensive turnaround we've had in the last two years, it's remarkable. He creates tackles for loss, sacks and our guys play with an edge on defense. That's what we did when we went on that run of five conference championships and he's brought that edge back."

On if it took some time for his team to settle down and get into a rhythm:
"Offensively, we were in a rhythm early on. I think we only punted one time in the first half, but defensively, I thought we had to settle down at the half because we had given up some passing yards. Ohio had a good game plan coming in and they are well coached. They surprised us; they hadn't been a throwing team all year and they came in and threw the ball 47 times. It took us some time to regroup from that, but in the second half we were able to get a lot of pressure on their quarterback."

On working Deondre Douglas into the offensive game-plan:
"We made some changes and flipped him and played him at the outside receiver for the first time all season. He had played on the inside through the first 12 games and we felt we needed to have some speed on the outside, so we swung him to the outside for this game and he made huge plays for us. We didn't ever trail in the game and when you hit a big play early on, it is a huge help for you. He has had a big December for us."

On was it the plan to go deep on the first play:
"That was the plan. We wanted to come into the game and attack early on. I thought we had been playing on our heels a little bit towards the end of the regular season and we wanted to attack. You talk about attacking, but you have to show them. If you look at what we did defensively, we had pressure early in the game. We went up top on the first play. We wanted to show our kids that we were in attack mode from the start."

On Justin Lucas' interception:
"That was a great play. I'll be very disappointed if that play isn't on the top 10 plays of the bowl season at the end of the year. He was the very first guy I signed as a head coach. He was the first guy that believed in what we were trying to do here and he came from East Mississippi Junior College where they had won two straight national championships and he is a winner. For him to come up huge in his last game as a Troy Trojan makes me proud."

Senior LB Justin Lucas
On his interception:
"We had a blitz called with me coming off the edge and I had seen the running back coming out in motion. When I saw the quarterback go to through, I just made an instinctual play. I rose up to bat it down when he went to throw it and I was just able to catch it."

On what this season means to this team:
"It's very special. This will be the first time that any Troy team has won 10 games as an FBS team. Troy had been down for a couple years and we hadn't been to a bowl game for six years before I signed. I was coming from a team that had gone 24-0 and won two national titles and I just believed in the process. To be in this position now, I'm just really blessed."

On how they adjusted to Ohio's game-plan:
"We had figured that they were going to throw the ball long on us because that's what people have been doing to us all year. We knew we had to put pressure on their quarterback because he's a good player."

Senior Defensive End Rashad Dillard
On their defensive mind set:
"Going into this past week, everybody kept talking about Ohio's defense and how good they were and them going against our offense. We knew that we were just as good as them. We go against our offense every day. As the game went on, it became about our defense."

On stepping up in place of Junior Gnonkonde:
"Junior's a great guy and an even better teammate. It was hard to be out there without him, but like coach Vic told us, 'When one guy goes down, someone has to step up.' We had others step up today and I just tried to fill Junior's shoes. I'm not as tall or as wide as Junior, but I tried as hard as I could. I'm just thankful we got the 'W'."

Redshirt Junior RB Jordan Chunn
On how big the play of the offensive line has been for the team this season:
"Those guys have been great. They really bought in during the offseason, communicated and gelled together."

On what's it's like to be part of Troy's first 10-win season at this level:
"it feels great. It feels like all of the hard work you did in the offseason paid off."

Ohio Postgame Quotes

Head Coach Frank Solich
Opening Statement:
"I thought our players played tremendously hard, physical football. There were good things that they did out there, but one thing we did that was too much to overcome was commit five turnovers to [their] two turnovers. Other than that I was pretty pleased with a lot of things that they did out there. Neither team rushed the ball very well, there were a lot of throws in the game with some big plays but it was a lot of grinding it out. I felt all along that we had a shot, and after a not great start our players fought back and I am proud of them for that."

On continuing to play QB Greg Windham:
"If you look at the average per completion we were hitting for close to 15 yards per completion so that was the reason to stick with him. All those turnovers weren't his fault; obviously he'd like to have a few plays back and I would like to have one call back when we ran the jailbreak screen down there. I think Greg showed great toughness and I felt like he gave us the best chance of winning."

On going for field goals twice in the fourth quarter trailing by eight points:
"That drive when we missed the field goal dictated a lot, but we still had four minutes to go when the field goal was made, that gave us an opportunity to win the game. We had two timeouts left, but we didn't get anything on the [punt] return, which was tough because we had over 85 yards to go. That's a difficult situation for them to be in."

On the team's defensive performance:
"We stopped the run well. They are a very good, balanced offensive football team; they have run it very well and thrown it very well. Tonight they threw it well obviously. But our defense held them below their [rushing] average and probably played well enough for us to win the ball game if it weren't for the turnovers. We played hard but just didn't make enough plays to get it done."

On trying to control Troy's pass rush:
"It was challenging, they are very quick and athletic up front. They give you a lot of different looks, sometimes they'll drop people and sometimes they'll bring people which can cause some confusion. We adjusted some of our blocking schemes for the passing game at halftime and went to more seven-man protection schemes to help out a little bit. I think as the game went along we adjusted a little better to their speed, but obviously Greg was on the run too much in the game."

Senior WR Jordan Reid
On his performance in his last collegiate game:
"It felt good, but at the end of the day it would've felt better with a win under my belt to close out my collegiate career."

On fighting through the team's early turnovers:
"It's just about keeping everybody up and not getting down. I believe we still had the ability to come back and get the win with all the turnovers."

On QB Greg Windham:
"I wouldn't trade Greg for the world, that's my brother. We went through a lot these last five years."

Senior DT Casey Sayles
On had the team's defense performed:
"I think we played pretty well defensively. There were too many turnovers, but the key defensively was we went out there and tried to ignore them."

On how the team feels about finishing the year 8-6:
"We set goals and got to the conference championship [game] — obviously we didn't win it — and we got to another bowl game. It's not like we got blown out at any time this year. There have been a few minor mistakes that has caused us to lose games."