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Bottom Line: Haugabook is this offense. Without him who knows how effective they’ll be. They are a balanced spread attack, the type of offense you really have to be prepared for. It’s the type of offense we’ve struggled with a good bit in years past, especially in OOC games. Considering the number of WRs they use, look for us to be in the nickel a good bit. This takes our SLB off the field. We saw that defense a good bit Saturday as well with considerable success now that Curran is playing well.

Key Matchup to watch when they have the ball: If Haugabook goes, the Troy offense will be as dangerous as they’ve been all year. Once again it’ll fall to our LBs to handle him. Ellerbe was everywhere Saturday, Washington didn’t seem to have any ill effects and Curran played well beyond his freshman designation. If those guys, Miller and Dent can keep playing at that level we’ll be in good shape but given the inconsistencies that have plagued every team in college football this season, we could certainly be in for a defensive letdown and if we get one, Haugabook and this balanced attack will make us pay.

Troy Defense

As strong as the Troy offense is, the defense is questionable. These guys really are like UF lite. They do sport one of the more dynamic playmakers we’ll face all year in CB Leodis McKelvin though. As far as what they do well defensively, these guys are essentially the anti-Gators, struggling against the run but handling the pass very well. They average giving up over 200 ypg (101st nationally) on the ground but are a stout 7th nationally in terms of passing yardage against. They do a good job of getting after the QB, averaging nearly 3 sacks per game. Given our Jekyll-Hyde approach to offensive production this year, we can make bad defenses look better than they are and if we’re still trying to relive the win over UF last week, Troy will make us work for it.

The Trojan DL isn’t the biggest in the world, but they are active and they have some talent. Former UGA DE signee Brandon Lang started the first 3 games of the season but hasn’t played since. I’m assuming he’s injured but I couldn’t find anything to confirm. Former FSU signee and GA native Chris Bradwell (who went JUCO after a turn at FSU) is listed as a backup DT but has played considerable minutes, starting 6 games and leading all DLs in tackles. Jr. DE Kenny Mainor has only started the last two games but he’s managed to lead the teams in TFLs (8) and sacks (5). At 6-3, 227 he’s a smaller DE like Jermaine Cunningham who we handled well last week in Jacksonville. Their interior group is deep, with several guys seeing minutes.

The Trojans play a good bit of nickel package, so the end result is two guys, Boris Lee and Marcus Richardson, with the bulk of the stats. MLB Lee, an undersized (6-0, 212) sophomore, leads the team in tackles with 51, but on a team with 55 TFLs combined, it’s a bit surprising to see the team’s leading tackler with only one TFL. He does have 2 INTs and 3 fumble recoveries on the year, so he’s obviously using his smallish size to cover some ground and make some stuff happen. WLB Marcus Richardson is 2nd on the team in tackles. His 5 TFLs and 2 sacks point to him being more of a nose in the backfield type of player.

The Trojan secondary might be as stout a bunch as we’ve faced all season. They’re certainly stronger than the group we just played. CB Leodis McKelvin is as a highly skilled athlete. The 5-11, 190-pound senior is a great cover guy, as his 2 INTs, 6 pass breakups and 8 passes defended indicate, but he’s also a stout tackler, ranking 3rd on the team with 40 tackles including 2.5 for loss. He’s an even more dangerous return man, needing only 1 more punt return for a TD to become the NCAA leader all-time. Opposite him is another capable CB in Elbert Mack, a 5-10, 165-pound senior. Mack is 6th on the team in tackles and leads the team with 5 INTs, has broken up 5 passes and defended 10 more. These are two solid CBs. The two safeties (a pair of juniors) are solid as well and rank 4 and 5 in tackles. Nickelback Sherrod Martin moves around a good bit and has piled up an impressive 7.5 TFLs and 3 sacks. Look for him blitzing.

Bottom Line: When you have CBs as good as Troy does, you can afford to bring pressure from different folks. They’re an excellent pass defense team but they’re pretty bad against the run. They blew out Ok State (largely due to a +3 turnover margin) yet OSU managed to rush for right at 250 yards. Florida went for over 260 on the ground. The ground happy Arkansas offense (of course) went off for 350 yards in the season opener. Richt would like to get away from leaning so heavily on newfound plaything Knowshon Moreno but we might be riding him again this week as Brown isn’t healthy enough to go and the ground game looks like the mode of attack against this group. Look for a similar game plan this week to last week in establishing the ground attack then going up top. They have strong, aggressive CBs, so if we can lull them a bit then use quick guys like Bailey and Henderson to beat them at the line we might be more than willing to take our shot deep.

Key matchup to watch when we have the ball: They have 1 LB over 6-1 and he’s listed 3rd string and is a freshman. I think Chandler could have a big day Saturday. He’s played well since that rough stretch against Bama and it’s doubtful he’d be matched up against their stout CBs so it would make sense that in our passing game we’ll utilize him some, especially if we’re trying to look to spell Moreno more.

The Troy Game Overall

We have to be VERY careful this week. This is a very good football team. They flat handled Ok State at home earlier this year. They have a dangerous QB and solid pass defense. They’ve won 6 straight games, which is saying something given the unpredictability of this season and their only two losses have come against Arkansas and Florida. They gave Arkansas all they could handle. We have to avoid the letdown this week. I’m not trying to slight Troy by saying we could be looking back at Florida and forward to Auburn but you could easily see it happening. This Troy team is a group that’s receiving votes in the polls. You could easily make a case they’re a better team than the Vandy team that took us to the wire not too long ago. We have to maintain that intensity and fire that we saw sparked in Jacksonville and carry it through the end of the season.

The biggest way to equalize two teams that have a big talent gap is turnovers. Against Ok State, Troy finished up with a +3 in the turnover battle and rolled to a victory. Against UF they broke even (two apiece) and got rolled. Against Arkansas they finished +1 and were able to stay in the game and make it close for longer than it should’ve been. Of course this was helped by the fact Arkansas put the ball on the ground an astonishing 6 times (they only lost 2). We’ve done a great job of protecting the ball this season, hopefully we’ll continue that.

There’s not much you can take from last season, but we did hit that rough stretch that we rebounded from to finish off strong. That resurgence was triggered out of nowhere in that miracle of a game against AU. We dominated a team no one really gave us anything resembling a chance against. We used that performance to close the season with strong wins over GT and VT. Now here we are, a season removed and the win came a little earlier. Perhaps we can use that win to carry us beyond that little hiccup of a two week stretch (where we lost to UT and barely edged Vandy) though the end of the year. Basically at this point, you win out and you’re in a BCS bowl and that doesn’t even mean UT has to lose. Pretty crazy considering that after the UT debacle some UGA fans were speculating whether or not we’d be able to become bowl eligible.