Sun Belt Sports Fans

SCORES

Western Kentucky 20, Florida Atlantic 0

UL-Monroe 38, Troy 10

Louisiana-Lafayette 30, North Texas 10

The main story from week seven in the Sun Belt Conference
was a shocking one. The 2010 season marked a slight decline from typical
standards for the Troy Trojans. Coach Larry Blakeney’s team won three Sun Belt
championships in a four-year span from 2006 through 2009. Then-quarterback Levi
Brown guided Troy’s offense with aplomb, consistently answering the call and
meeting the demands of almost every pressure-packed situation. North Texas
owned the Sun Belt in the earlier part of the past decade, but Troy became the
Belt’s bellcow in the second half of the 21st century’s opening decade. When Brown
graduated, a drop-off was to be expected, but it was only supposed to be a
modest one. Troy slipped enough in 2010 for Florida International to win the
league, but when Troy maxed out in an impressive New Orleans Bowl blowout of
the Ohio University Bobcats, it seemed that the Trojans were ready to regroup
and make a bold run at the league title this season.

It has not turned out that way at all. Genuinely, Troy is –
if not out of the running – on the periphery of the Sun Belt race with several
weeks of play left to go. This past Saturday on its home field, Troy got
embarrassed by Louisiana-Monroe’s Warhawks. The fact that Monroe beat Troy for
the second straight year wasn’t the embarrassing part; it was the way in which
a once-proud program dissolved into a puddle of impotence before a shocked home
crowd in the southeastern corner of the state of Alabama.

This game shaped up as a low-scoring slugfest; tied at three
at halftime, Troy carved out a 10-3 advantage on an 11-yard touchdown run by
Shawn Southward with 11:28 to go in the third quarter. Then the house fell down
for Troy while the visiting Warhawks took command.

Monroe scored three touchdowns within a six-minute span to
take a 22-10 lead into the fourth quarter. The key play in this 19-point burst
was Troy’s fumble on the kickoff following the second of ULM’s three
touchdowns. The Warhawks had gained a 15-10 lead, but Troy was about to get the
ball back with a chance to answer. However, when Troy kickoff return man
Chandler Worthy coughed up the pigskin, the Warhawks’ coverage team was able to
pounce on the loose ball at the Trojans’ 17. Two plays later, Monroe
quarterback Kolton Browning hit his second touchdown pass of the quarter, and
in the blink of an eye, Monroe had assembled a 12-point lead.

It’s worth pointing out that Troy moved the ball in the
first half but got intercepted inside the 25-yard line on one drive and was
stoned at the 1 on another. Those two failures loomed large when ULM took its
22-10 advantage. Had the margin been just one possession, Troy might not have
panicked, but when the Warhawks gained a cushion, the reality of impending doom
appeared to weigh heavily on Troy’s offense. Sophomore quarterback Corey
Robinson, the successor to Brown, experienced a freshman’s typical share of ups
and downs in 2010, but in 2011, he was supposed to get the hang of Blakeney’s
offense. Saturday, he did not rise to the occasion. He looked thoroughly lost
and flustered in the fourth quarter as Monroe built its 22-10 lead into a 38-10
bulge. Troy didn’t make one credible advance toward the end zone once this game
began to unravel. Robinson had the deer-in-the-headlights look that
characterized certain portions of his 2010 season. When this game was over,
Robinson’s stat line was shockingly sparse: Just 19 completions in 34 attempts
was bad enough, but it’s Robinson’s total of just 129 passing yards that really
catches the eye. Two interceptions didn’t help his cause either on an evening
when Troy amassed just 126 total yards. Yes, the Trojans rushed for minus-14
yards. Monroe’s defense was that dominant, particularly during the Warhawks’
second-half onslaught. What looked like a tight and testy 17-13 kind of game
early in the third quarter became a backyard beatdown, and as a result, Troy’s
season lies in ruins. It’s not the scenario longtime Sun Belt watchers expected
to see. Give Louisiana-Monroe a deservedly ample amount of credit for showing
such marked composure on the road; yet, the story that headline writers will
gravitate to is the fall of Troy. It has an epic ring to it, doesn’t it?

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer