After a week off, the Bobcats are back in action this Saturday with the biggest game for the program since making the jump to the FBS in 2012.
“They’re getting bigger every weekend,” said TXST Athletic Director Don Coryell referring to Texas State football games in a promotional video advertising this weekend’s matchup. And he’s right, the stakes haven’t been this high for the Bobcats in over a decade. They will be playing this game in front of a homecoming crowd not only for bowl eligibility, but also for a spot in the driver’s seat of the Sun Belt West.
Both teams will come into San Marcos off a bye week, both teams are 5-2 on the year, and both teams are 2-1 in conference play. No team has come as close to unseating James Madison as Troy, as they fell to the Dukes 16-14 in their third game of the season. The Trojans haven’t lost since.
To set the weekend’s stage even further, this game will be a true strength-on-strength matchup. Texas State boasts the best offense in the Sun Belt, and Troy will take the conference’s best defense to San Marcos. The Trojans have allowed just 10 points in their last three games.
A Look at Troy
On offense, the Trojans are quarterbacked by sixth-year senior Gunnar Watson. In three starts against the Bobcats, Watson is 3-0 with six touchdowns and one interception. Watson does not possess the same athleticism that the Bobcats have seen in their last two games against Zeon Chriss and Jiya Wright. Without misdirection, Watson will not be a threat on the ground. However, he is a very effective game-manager behind an offensive line that has not allowed a sack in the last three games. While he doesn’t have a cannon for an arm like T.J. Finley, he is very accurate at the intermediate level. Their offense provides open field opportunities for a talented wide receiver room and plays very well off an elite rushing attack.
Troy running back Kimani Vidal leads the FBS in rushing yards behind a Trojan o-line just as effective with the run block. They are an athletic, and well coached group that create big gaps for Vidal to run through. While he does not possess game breaking burst that someone like Ismail Mahdi has, Vidal can reach an elite top speed when he hits his stride. Perhaps his biggest weapon is in his ability to break tackles. Arm tackling will not get the job done against him as he rarely goes down on first contact. The Bobcats front seven has been enormous this season, but Vidal and the Trojan’s offensive line will be a huge test for that group. The Bobcat secondary has missed plenty of tackles this season, they will need to step up in this game. Additionally, Vidal also presents a threat in the passing game, as the Trojans have already thrown to him a handful of times this season.
Troy has a talented group of wide receivers, and they are led by junior Jabre Barber. Barber leads the team in receptions with 29, and receiving yards with 455, the 5’10” receiver has a lot of speed. Troy makes teams pay for loading the box against their rushing attack by hitting Barber over the top on a crossing route and letting him burn the angles of the safety. Troy has a versatile receiving room. Barber is a speedster but their second leading receiver, Chris Lewis, is a tall possession receiver. The sophomore transfer from Kentucky was a four-star recruit in the class of 2021, and an all-state basketball player. Lewis stands 6’4″ and has tremendous body control. He only has 15 catches this season, but they have resulted in 364 yards and four touchdowns. He is a big play machine and is capable of making absurd one-handed catches. Receivers Deshon Stoudemire and Devonte Ross are also a threat in this offense. Both of whom are capable of creating explosive plays in this offense.
The Trojan offense is capable of hitting on explosive plays, but not always efficient. There is plenty of talent on the offense, but they have been stopped before. The strength of this team is certainly the defensive side of the ball.
They defend both the run and the pass very well. The key to their defense is forcing teams behind schedule. Outside of their game against Kansas State, Troy has been ridiculously effective on third down. Staying on schedule will be key for Texas State, they cannot allow Troy to force the offense into second and third and long.
In seven games this season, the Troy defense has held three teams under 100 yards rushing. Overall, the defense is allowing just 281.3 yards per game, which ranks 10th in the FBS. By comparison, the Texas State offense averages 491.3 yards per game, which ranks eighth.
Javon Solomon and Richard Jibunor combine to form an elite pass rushing duo off the edges, they have combined for 9.5 sacks this season. Luis Medina is a stout defensive tackle, and has been huge for Troy in run defense. T.J. Jackson is also a defensive end to watch, he missed the first two games of the season but has not missed a beat since returning to the team.
Troy lost LB Carlton Martial, the FBS all-time leading tackler, this offseason. However, the group really hasn’t looked out of sync – Jayden McDonald and Jordan Stringer have been great players for Troy this season. Still, if you’re searching for a hole in this terrific Troy defense, their linebackers are slightly inexperienced. While they have looked great this year, it is certainly possible that Kinne and Leftwich can scheme ways to expose a group that has not played a ton of football together.
Just like most of the other position groups on this team, Troy’s secondary is highly experienced. They have slightly better efficiency metrics against the pass than the run. The Bobcat receivers will be matched up with an extremely talented group of defenders and one of the best is safety Keyshawn Swanson, who was one of the highest-graded players in college football last season. Swanson is a physical safety who flies around the field and rarely misses a tackle. Their other key safety is Dell Pettus, who has started the most games out of anybody on the team. Pettus also misses very few tackles, last season he had one of the lowest missed tackle rates among G5 defenders. Their key corner is O’shai Fletcher, who allows one of the fewest reception rates of any CB in the nation. Senior CB Reddy Steward leads the team in interceptions with two.
Defensive Keys to the Game
- Put a roof on the Trojan offense
I mentioned this in my breakdown of their offensive players, but Troy’s offense is capable of massive plays at any given moment. They are a team that is built, and schemed to take chunks of yardage away from defenses. In previous games, if you limit the big play, you can slow down the offense.
- Limit the damage in the red zone
Troy’s red zone offense has been a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, they have scored on 96.2% (25-26) of their trips to the red zone. That number is tied for sixth in the country. However, 13 of those 25 scores have been field goals, the second most in the country. Troy has been limiting themselves to three points more often than they’ve scored six.
On defense, Texas State has allowed scores on 81.2% (26-32) of opponents red zone opportunities, tied for 60th in the FBS. Of those 26 scores, only five have been limited to touchdowns. The Bobcat defense needs to improve in that aspect and take advantage of a weakness in Troy’s offense. We saw it against ULM, defenses cannot take Texas State’s offense out of the whole game, so limiting opponents to three points would go a long way in deciding games.
- Win the trenches
I say it every week, and I will continue to say it: if you win at the line of scrimmage, you win the game. The vast majority of the time, that is how football works. You can ask any coach, it really is that simple. Troy has not allowed a sack in three weeks, they have the nations leading rusher. Simply put, they are used to dominating the line of scrimmage. Texas State’s defense is third in the FBS in TFLs per game, and they remain near the top in sacks. Watson is not the most athletic quarterback in the world, if they make him on comfortable and force him off his spot, Troy’s passing game will be less efficient.
Offensive Keys to the Game
- Make it easy for Mahdi
Ismail Mahdi did not get to play as much against ULM as anyone would have liked, but with a week of rest I expect his workload to approach normality. Troy’s defensive front is one of the best in the nation against the run, it is a tall task for the offensive line. Lucky for them, Mahdi doesn’t need much to make an explosive play happen. If he gets a glimpse at the second level a big play is always possible, the offensive line just has to keep the Trojan front out of the backfield.
- Utilize the quick game
When I imagine G.J. Kinne’s offense I think about wide receiver screens, and quick slants over the middle. The receivers being lined up far outside puts them in good positions to make plays in the open field. Last game, I noticed there was much less of that. Finley struggled to get a rhythm established with his receivers, which resulted in by far his lowest completion percentage of the season. Against an extremely talented defense, I expect Kinne to make things a little bit easier for his quarterback.
- Limit three-and-outs
This point probably seems rather obvious, but it has never been more important for this offense to stay on the field. One draw back to the electric high-tempo offense that G.J. Kinne runs is that if it is not working, the defense does not get much time to rest.
We saw it in the loss against UTSA, the weakest offensive performance for the Bobcats this season. The lack of sustained drives led to UTSA dominating the time of possession, leaving Texas State’s defense exhausted at the end, unable to get the final stop. They cannot let the same thing happen this week against a great defense.
Final Thoughts
Texas State fans could not have asked for much more, a game at home for bowl eligibility with massive Sun Belt championship implications. On paper, these teams look to be fairly reasonably matched. I think that the advantage slightly leans the way of Troy, they just seem like a more complete team going into this game. However, paper does not take home field advantage into account. Paper cannot quantify special teams or turnovers, that is where many games are won and lost. Games are not played on paper, they are played on the field. Tomorrow night, Jim Wacker Field will host the biggest game Bobcat fans have seen in over a decade.
