USA Treating Troy As Any Other Opponent
The Jags are only a few days removed from their thrilling game against Tennessee and there still remains a lot of buzz in the air.
Few teams receive the amount of congratulations and praise for a loss as the Jaguars have received since their narrow loss in Knoxville. They deserve the praise as they have quickly grown from a fledgling team who only began football five years ago and have now knocked off Tulane, Western Kentucky and gave Tennessee a run for their money. That is unbelievable growth when talking about College Football, or anything for that matter.
But they cannot dwell in the past and must turn their focus on the future, namely Troy University.
The Jags played their first ever Sun Belt Conference game against Troy last season and a combination of the emotions and experience went to the Trojans and they came away with a 31-10 win at Ladd-Peebles Stadium last season in a wet, sloppy game.
Head coach Joey Jones knows that they cannot get caught up in the talk of rivalries or look at the team they will be playing on Saturday any differently than they look at any other opponent.
The team will continue to do what they have been doing all season and that is focus on bettering themselves.
“What our guys have taken on this year is focusing on what we need to do,” Jones said in his Monday press conference. “I think that approach has helped us. We’re not worried about the other team anymore, even though we have to prepare for them. We’re worried about what we do, and I think that has made us a much better team. We’ve worked on things like being one in practice, and our offense, defense and special teams are on the same page right now. We’re all working toward the same goal, and that’s what we’re focusing on. Troy is our next conference game, and that is important for us and to our goals. We want to get in a bowl game and win a conference championship, and that’s where we are. That’s why we are going to work hard this week and do the things we need to do to get prepared for Troy.”
The Jags 2-2 (1-0 SBC) will enter the game tied for first place in the Sun Belt standings while Troy 2-3 (0-1 SBC) is tied for last place. However each team has only played one conference game thus far and the conference season is just now starting to get warmed up.
This weeks slate of conference games include:
WKU @ ULM Thursday Oct. 3 on ESPNU
Texas State @ ULL 6pm ESPN3
Georgia State @ Alabama 11:21am SEC Network
The Jags and the Trojans will be on ESPN3 nationally and on Comcast Sports South for Comcast Cable subscribers. The game will also be Troy’s homecoming game which the Jags will hope to spoil.
Go Jags!