(06-02-2012 04:50 PM)MG61 Wrote: (06-02-2012 04:34 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote: (06-02-2012 04:04 PM)MG61 Wrote: (06-02-2012 04:00 PM)Atlanta Trojan Wrote: Troy wont be less than 3rd...
And FIU wont be 1st...
I'm just a confident that Troy will not finish in the top 3 and that FIU has a good shot of winning the title.
I'm not sure what Troy will do either, but just curious what makes you so confident Troy won't finish in the Top 3?
It's just pre-season stuff, but name just one of the ranking services that has Troy in the top 3. It seems that everyone other than Troy folks have the Trojans no better than 4th or 5th.
Again, I'm not saying Troy will run the show, and there's certainly some homerism going on. Preseason rankings aren't always that accurate either, many of them go off what happened the year before and keep it at that. The national services will do that because they don't take the time to research the sunbelt.
That said, there are a few things in Troy's favor that most services don't know:
1) Larry Blakeney has never had back to back losing seasons at Troy.
2) Troy also gets the assumed Top 4 at home in Arkansas State, Louisiana, Florida International and Western Kentucky. Troy is 4th in the
country in home field advantage, with Oklahoma, Boise, and Texas being the only three teams with better homefield records (since 2003,
source Phil Steele)
3) Troy, is also 21-0 in home openers. Blakeney has never lost one at Troy, and gets one of those frontrunners to open the season (Louisiana) while they bring back only 2 starters on defense from an 84th ranked defense.
4) We have never won at ULM. They have our number. It's our turn to go to ULM, except we don't have to play them this year (sorry warhaks, no automatic win for you guys).
5) Troy's offense is going to be much better. We bring back 96% of our offense, 16 of 19 receivers - one of the thee lost was Jamie Hampton who had 1 catch. We've added four JUCO recievers as well (Brought back 34% total offense the year before, a record low return percentage, lost our top 7 that year and Jernigan before the season started).
We also are adding two receivers back from 2010 that were a big part of that record setting offense (Chip Reeves and Jamel Johnson). They did not play last year due to grades. We bring back 99.7% of our running game and the offensive line
appears back to their old winning ways.
6) We've added 11 JUCO defensive players, including JUCO All American Cornerback Zack Miller and 305 lb DT Xavier Melton, who played on the #2 JUCO team in the country.
7) Turnovers = Turnaround. In the past 17 years, there have been 208 teams that have finished the season minus double-digits in turnovers. Of those 208 teams, 143 (69%) have had better records the next year! Troy was #114th in turnover margin (-12) last season. Read
this to see a more detailed explanation. Good news for
Middle Tennessee fans as well.