Troy looks to bounce back against the Dukes
After falling 21-14 to the ULM Warhawks on Saturday in Veterans Memorial Stadium, the Trojans hope to turn the tide of their season as they travel to face James Madison Thursday in a short week.
The Warhawks scored 18 of their 21 points in the final three minutes of the game, with six of the points coming off a fumble recovery on the final play of the game when Troy was trying to lateral the ball to find a big play.
Head coach Gerad Parker said the team needs to focus on what is ahead of them this week and not dwell in the past.
“We have to flip the page, go back to work, find answers, find a way to play winning football and be a part of a team we're proud of,” Parker said. “The staff is working tirelessly to find answers for our players, and we hold them accountable and challenge them to believe in themselves and learn a new game plan to play better football.”
Parker said the team’s fourth-quarter collapse after leading most of the game is an execution issue.
“There's not an effort issue or a physicality issue,” Parker said. “We have an execution issue.
“There's not just one singular answer to how you do that and flip a switch to do that. It goes into a lot of different things and areas. They hear it. They've owned it. They understand it.”
Against the Warhawks, Troy rushed for 153 yards but finished with only 47 passing yards, the fewest for the Trojans since 2005. While Parker believes the team is improving at running the ball, it needs to find explosive plays on both the ground and in the air.
“We have run the football better,” Parker said. “We've done those things better and more efficiently, but we're not creating explosives in the run game in the last two weeks, and we're not creating any explosives in a completion game of passes.
“You can't score doing that, period. We have to create explosives in our run game and run the football, and we have got to find some explosives in our pass game so we can throw a forward pass.”
Troy was without wideout TK Keyes against the Warhawks, but Keyes is expected to return for this week’s matchup against James Madison.
“[Keyes being out against ULM] affected us,” Parker said. “There are good signs over the weekend of him healing.
“It'll still be day-to-day here as we go, but we're optimistic that he could be available.”
Meanwhile, for James Madison, the Dukes lost their last matchup 34-31 on the road against App State in overtime. However, the team still poses a threat against the Trojans, as the Dukes rank 5th in the FBS for scoring offense.
Troy and James Madison will duke it out on Thursday in Harrisonburg, Virginia, at 6:30 p.m. CST, with the game airing on ESPN 2.
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