Troy Opens Sun Belt Play Saturday with Arkansas State

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TROY, Ala. – Old school Sun Belt rivals Troy and Arkansas State meet Saturday at The Vet in the league opener for both schools. Kickoff is set for 5 p.m., and the game will serve as Troy's annual Military Appreciation Game.

The game will be broadcast live on ESPN+ and the Troy Sports Radio Network will have full coverage beginning at 3 p.m. Trojan Walk is set for 3 p.m. and gates to The Vet open at 3:30 p.m.

Troy and Arkansas State have been the standard in the Sun Belt since the Trojans joined in 2004 with a league-best six conference championships each. However, due to the change in league membership the two schools have met just twice in the last five years.

The last meeting was arguably the best in the series with Troy scoring a last-minute touchdown in Jonesboro and in turn winning the Sun Belt championship.

Fast forward to this season and you have two teams eager to get conference play rolling. Troy (2-1) is coming off a 35-7 victory at Akron and will be playing in consecutive weeks for the first time this season, while Arkansas State (2-2) has wins over UNLV and Southern Illinois on the season with losses to Georgia and SMU.

"We need to get off to a great start in the conference so it's a huge game for us," head coach Chip Lindsey said. "Our fans will be a big factor this weekend in making The Vet a very tough place to play. It's a big challenge but it's one that we're really excited about."

Troy's defense is coming off its second solid performance this year after holding Akron to just 242 yards, including only 39 yards on the ground. The Trojans rush defense has been a force all season as Troy entered the week ranked eighth nationally against the run. Troy has already held two opponents under 250 total yards this year.

Offensively, senior quarterback Kaleb Barker continues his remarkable bounce back season ranking sixth nationally with 333.3 yards per game through the air and 10^th with 10.0 points responsible for per game.

Know Your Foe
The injury bug has hit Troy hard early this season and that has been the case for Arkansas State as well. The Red Wolves announced Wednesday that starting quarterback Logan Bonner would miss the rest of the season due to a hand injury. However, Arkansas State has plenty of weapons with a pair of receivers on the Biletnikoff Award Watch List – Omar Bayless and Kirk Merritt.

Quotable – Troy Head Coach Chip Lindsey
We don't approach Saturday any different than any other game. We're going to prepare each week the same and give our team the best chance to win each week. It'd be nice for us to get off to a good start in conference play, and certainly that's our goal.

Notable
• Troy ran 95 offensive plays in the win at Akron last weekend, its most since 2013 at Georgia State. The defense limited Akron to just 50 plays on the other side of the ball and the 45-play differential was the second largest in Troy's FBS history.

• Troy rushed the ball 56 times last weekend at Akron, which was the most by a Troy team since rushing 58 times in a win at Idaho in 2014.

• Six different players have scored a touchdown for the first time in their career so far this season – Reggie Todd, DK Billingsley, Kaylon Geiger, Khalil McClain, A.J. Lewis and Bret Clark.

• Troy has held two of its first three opponents under the 250-yard mark, the two times in a season is already tied for the most since the 2008 squad did so three times.

Troy Opens Sun Belt Play Saturday with Arkansas State

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Players Mentioned

Kaleb Barker

DK Billingsley

Bret Clark

Kaylon Geiger

Khalil McClain

Reggie Todd

Troy University Athletics