Wednesday links

September 09, 2008

By Drew Champlin

From me, I’ve got a feature on Tavares Williams, Troy’s senior strong safety. It’s similar to what I wrote two years ago about his relationship with his son, but longer this time around.

Don’t forget Trojan chat tonight (WED) at 8 p.m. CST. The blog software is a post below this one.

Tuesday links

September 08, 2008

By Drew Champlin

Got a couple of things for you. First, a special teams story, also a Troy notebook on the running backs situation.

I’m slated to be on SportsLine with John and Barry around 8:35 a.m. CST Tuesday morning.

Also, a funny, check out the Denton Record-Chronicle’s Mean Green blog, which is run by Brett Vito, a friend of mine who has been covering UNT at least as long as I’ve been covering Troy. One of his co-workers called North Texas “Southlake North” during UNT’s blowout loss Saturday night. Southlake is where head coach Todd Dodge was coaching high school ball before he got to UNT. Apparently, fans didn’t like that.

New commitment for Troy, plus other Monday notes

By Drew Champlin

First off, defensive tackle Emanuel Dudley has committed to Troy. He’s 6-foot-1, 280 pounds, and at Northeast Mississippi Community College via Shaw HS in Columbus, Ga.

The good thing about him is that he’ll be in Troy in January, so he’ll have a chance to go through spring practice and earn a starting spot. I talked to Dudley earlier this afternoon. A rivals.com profile had him signing with South Carolina State out of high school.

“They were on me real hard,“ Dudley said of Troy. “They wanted me from the start. One of my best friends (cornerback Chris Bowens) goes there and Coach (Benjy) Parker was recruiting me from the start. He used to coach here.“

On his style of play: “I’m used to a fast-moving defense based on speed. That’s what Troy’s got.“

That makes Troy’s fifth commitment of the 2009 class. The others are DT Eugene Kinlaw (Hutchinson CC), DT Montavious Williams (Cairo, Ga. HS), OT Nate Newland (Hutchinson CC) and OT Jay Stansberry (Bremen, Ga. HS)

MONDAY NOTES

***Jerrel Jernigan and Jorrick Calvin stayed after practice every day last week catching punts, but senior Fred Turner will get a look there this week.

***Running backs coach Chad Scott went down to Fort Lauderdale toward the end of last week to get more paperwork on behalf of freshman running back Chris Anderson to turn in to Troy director of ompliance Kit Alewine. It’s all in the NCAA’s hands from here, and they can take their sweet time, as it seems they’re doing, on the issue.

***Offensive coordinator Neal Brown said that if this were a conference weekend, senior running back Xavier Moreland would play. He’ll practice this week after suffering a collarbone injury earlier in camp and he should be ready to play next weekend at Ohio State. The No. 2 back right now behind DuJuan Harris? It might surprise you. It’s junior Fernandus Edwards. I asked if it was because he was doing well in practice and he responded, “It’s more of what the other guy’s not doing.“

The other guy is Maurice Greer, who apparently is having a problem paying attention to detail in an offense where doing just that is vital to success. He had a great week of practice leading into the MTSU game, but has struggled a bit since then.

***CHAT UPDATE. Instead of Thursday, we’ll go Wednesday night this week at 8 p.m. CST. I’ve got to work desk Thursday night and maybe we’ll have a bigger crowd on Wednesday. I’ll post a chat link reminder on Wednesday plus the chat software.

 

6:30 p.m. EDIT - Forgot to mention that the Michael Ricks saga has come to an end, for this semester. He didn’t qualify, he’s back at JUCO taking classes, and he’s got one more year left to play one (in 2009).

Know your Trojan coach: Chad Scott

September 07, 2008

By Drew Champlin

As the year goes on, I’m trying to do certain things like this for all the Troy assistant coaches, so you’ll get to know them better.

The first installment is with running backs coach Chad Scott, who is in his second year with the program. That link will take you there.

Sun Belt Week 2: What we learned

By Drew Champlin

Looks like I went 6-1 this week, losing the FAU pick. I had decided on two upset picks, and got one of them right,  that being the MTSU win over Maryland.

Middle Tennessee 24, Maryland 14: The Blue Raiders finally got a big win at home. Sure, Maryland stinks, but any Sun Belt win over an ACC team is great. That’s two straight weeks of wins over teams in BCS leagues.

Arkansas 28, UL-Monroe 27: ULM was close, but the Warhawks gave away another win over an SEC team. Methinks Arkansas is the luckiest team in the NCAA this year.

Tulsa 56, North Texas 26: I think a bunch of gotroytrojans.com regulars, led by Mr. Ho at quarterback, could score 40 on North Texas. The interesting part is that Riley Dodge played, but not at quarterback.

Iowa 42, FIU 0: Golden Panthers were putrid in a loss to an average Big 10 school.

FAU 49, UAB 34: Owls’ explosive offense jumps back to life, but there still questions on defense. Meanwhile, read on in that blog and they’re moving the student seats to the visitor side of the field for the Troy game on TV.

WKU 37, EKU 13: Another win for the Hilltoppers, but it came at a price.. Starting QB KJ Black suffered a shoulder injury.

Arkansas State 83, Texas Southern 10: Eesh. Hope TSU got a good payday.

Drew’s Power Rankings (Note, this is not a prediction of how the teams will finish, but how they’re playing right now)

1. Arkansas State - Can’t really argue this one
2. Troy - Off week, but still ahead of FAU because Trojans beat a team soundly on its home field (for much of the game) that beat an ACC team. Not sure how long Trojans can stay this high unless they get better offensively, but it’s a long time before another SBC game.
3. FAU - Very good offense started clicking again, defense still has some question marks
4. MTSU - Blue Raiders move up on strength of win over ACC school. Problem is, MTSU could be out of the race after 5 games because next two SBC games are against Arkansas State and FAU.
5. ULM - Would be higher if the Warhawks hadn’t blown it late.
6. ULL - Bye week. That’s good, because it allowed UNT and FIU to stink and move lower.
T8 FIU - Where was the offense? Not even a field goal. Don’t believe either of these teams deserve a “7” for seventh place as both are equally bad.
T8 UNT - Tulsa might have hung 100 if they wanted to.