Some reporting day notes

July 31, 2007

By Drew Champlin

***Wide receiver Randy Underwood is no longer with the team. He was going to likely redshirt this year with hopes of being a 6-foot-6, 210 (or whatever)pound force at the position. With his heart not being in the game, he will transfer somewhere to play basketball. He was a pretty good basketball player in high school. The only different player I found out that isn’t on the team anymore is linebacker Jonathan Reese. Others previously mentioned as having left are cornerback Henry Chubb, running back Justin Brooks, defensive end Jamare Mathis and defensive tackle Brandon Suggs.

**EDIT TO ADD of those, only Chubb would have been a difference-maker this year, but there’s enough depth at cornerback (Leodis McKelvin and Elbert Mack are starters, Bryant McKissic and Trevor Ford are the backups) to cover it.

***Highly-touted recruit Dion Gales is on campus and in the 105. He and offensive tackle Jamarr Thompson are some big, big boys. A legit 6’6 at least. I’ll try to have more on Gales after Thursday’s practice.

***Here’s a list of guys who signed in February but will grayshirt and report in January 2008.
WR Richie Henderson
OL Jacob Creech
DL Brandon Boudreaux
DB Kejuan Phillips
DB Stacey Williams.

As far as guys who “didn’t qualify” the only ones I can think of now that were listed as signees were running backs Ricky McGee and Fred Hawkins. I’d probably have to tell you more Thursday.

Four linebackers - David McDowell, Donnell Golden, Lennie Richardson and Xavier Lamb - will get good, hard looks this fall camp. A three-hour practice is set for Thursday at 6 p.m.

Also I checked back with the guy from Lincoln Financial Sports. Troy-Arkansas STILL IS NOT one of the finalists for that Sept. 1 telecasts. I had something on that on the old blog, but double-checked with him and here’s what he e-mailed me back. The guy’s name is James Rayburn.

No decision has been made for our opening SEC football telecast on Sept. 1.  There’s no deadline, but I feel a decision will be make within two weeks.  No change in the options you list below.

The games I listed below were the three he sent back to me a month ago or so: Western Kentucky at Florida, Western Carolina at Alabama and Eastern Kentucky at Kentucky.

Why anyone would want to welcome the SEC Saturday football season with the three Daves calling Eastern Kentucky-Kentucky is beyond me. Yeah, they replaced one Dave (Dave Rowe) with another Dave (Dave Archer).

I’ll have a reporting day story in tomorrow’s paper plus a feature on Maurice Coleman Thursday.

Wright’s thoughts

By Drew Champlin

Here’s the full story on Scott Farmer leaving Troy for ULL.

At Media Days last week, I caught up with Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters. Here are the quotes I got from him.

On which bowls the Sun Belt is in contact with for a second bowl
We’ve got a number of conversations going on. We think it’s premature to name any names right now. We’ve got to make it work financially and make sure we have a playing partner.

We’re actively pursuing it and we laid it out for the athletic directors and sent a strong recommendation to the executive committee to go forward with it.

The concern is, I think we’ll get them in games, I just don’t want to run the risk of sending them to Lower Oshkosh to games as opposed to being in the Southeast where people can travel with their teams.

We were within a gnat’s eyelash of having to send Middle Tennessee to San Diego rather than Detroit last year. That would have been a problem.
His thoughts on Troy’s performance in the New Orleans Bowl
Troy’s been everything we thought they would be when they came into the league. They’ve set the bar with their facilities, enthusiasm and intensity for football and it’s made everybody better for it.

When we look back and when somebody writes the history of this league 50 years for now, Larry Blakeney’s name and Troy University will be a prominent part of it.
Do you want the league to go to 12 teams?
I don’t. I think with those 12-team, conference championship figurations ... a lot of people made those decisions because TV needed programming that weekend. Now with the 12th game, there’s another regular season game available. Some of those championships outside the SEC and Big 12 are really struggling to put people in the stands.

If you can’t make it work at a neutral site with lots of attendance and lots of media, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to get in that business.

What do you think about games not on Saturdays, specifically Troy’s games on Friday and Tuesday nights this year?
I think Thursday night, we’ve been playing those since the early 80s, that’s become a traditional date. Saturday’s a traditional date. If it was up to me, college football would be played then. The national exposure is so important that if you can get one game a year to that date it’s all right, but if you have to move two, three or four games a year to midweek dates, you’re in trouble.

Dion Gales

July 30, 2007

By Drew Champlin

As of 4:56 p.m. Monday afternoon, highly-touted JUCO defensive tackle recruit Dion Gales is on the 105-man reporting roster, which is set to enter tomorrow. There’s a team meeting at 4 p.m. tomorrow to go over paperwork and the like, with practice starting Thursday.

Obviously that can change and the 105 will change with a few names here and there, mostly walk-ons, but things are looking good for Gales on that front.

Gales was a five-star recruit by scout.com who originally committed to Ole Miss. He’ll help right away.

I’ll be in Troy tomorrow and will do some type of reporting day story (hopefully on Gales) to replace the normal Wednesday Q and A, but I plan the next two weeks to have some detailed looks into the offense and defense with the respective coordinators there. That will be good because it’s after practice has started.

Scott Farmer

By Drew Champlin

Just got it officially confirmed that Troy senior associate athletics director Scott Farmer is leaving for a similar position at UL-Lafayette. Scott is basically the right-hand man of athletics director Steve Dennis and has been at Troy for nearly nine years. His wife, Jackie, has been the ticket manager since 2003. She’ll obviously go with him and their kids, but won’t start working at ULL yet in order to get their family involved in the community.

It’s a substantial pay raise, though I don’t have exact numbers, and a little bit more responsibility.

I’ll have a short thing on the web today and more tomorrow, but it’s a big loss for the Troy program and a big gain for the ULL program.

Super Trojans

July 27, 2007

By Drew Champlin

Turning more pages of the media guide and I get to the Trojan Club scoring system - where players get points based on how well they do in several categories: strength (bench, squat), explosion (box jumps), quickness/agility (Dots, jump ropes), speed (12-yard dash, 40-yard dash), power (clean), bonus (vertical - 225 reps)

Anyway, Gary Banks and Marcus Richardson were the only two members of the Elite Club, both with 96 points. That says a lot because these two guys are two of the top leaders on the team.

Will Chambliss, Fred Turner and Shawn Todd are members of the Exclusive Trojan Club.

Here’s some top 5s in a few categories.

BENCH
1. LB Bear Woods 430 lbs
2. OL Chris Jamison 425
3. LB Romanique Lewis 400
3. OL Will Chambliss 400
5. OL Jim Bob Williams 390

SQUAT
1. DL Chris Bradwell 590 lbs
2. OL Windham Rotunda 585
3. RB Travis King 550
4. RB Kenny Cattouse 545
5. WR Gary Banks 500

40-YARD DASH
1. CB Leodis McKelvin 4.4 seconds
2. WR Clarence Denmark 4.44
3. WR Mykeal Terry 4.48
4. DB Trevor Ford 4.5
5. DL Kenny Mainor 4.5