For the second year in a row, Clemson will look to bounce back from a week one loss to an SEC opponent with a week two win against an SBC opponent. This weekend, the Tigers will stay home to face Troy out of the Sun Belt Conference.
Last season, after losing to Georgia in its first game, Clemson came out against another Sun Belt opponent, Appalachian State, and won that game 66-20. The Tigers will want a similarly dominating win to show they are still on track to be a national championship contender. It will not be easy against a Trojan team that won its week one game. Troy is consistently a very good program that Clemson is familiar with.
Clemson vs. Troy
About Troy
Troy is an FBS group of five programs located in Alabama. As mentioned, the Trojans play in the Sun Belt Conference. Since becoming a member of the conference, Troy has won eight SBC Championships. The Trojans’ most recent conference championship win was in the 2023 season. Since then, Troy has hired a new head coach, Gerad Parker.
The 2024 season was Parker’s first season as the head man of the program. In his first year, the Trojans went 4-8 overall, 3-5 in the SBC. The 2025 season has started on a much better note, though. Last week, Troy beat Nicholls out of the FCS. The win does not sound all that impressive, but the way the Trojans won was.
Nicholls was coming off a huge upset the week before, defeating the fifth-ranked FCS team in the country, Incarnate Word. The Colonels jumped out to the early lead and didn’t let go of it until the fourth quarter. The score was 17-10 going into the fourth. Then, Troy scored 28 points in the fourth quarter as Nicholls only scored three. The Trojans won the game 38-20, dominating the final 15 minutes with the ground game.
This Troy team is tough and is going to fight until the very end. The Trojans love to run the ball on offense. In their 416 total yards of offense, 272 of them were rushing yards. Defensively, they want to get after the quarterback. They had four sacks against Nicholls. Clemson has to be ready to find ways to run the ball on offense and stop the run on defense.
Matchup History
This will be the third meeting all-time between these two programs. Clemson is 2-0 in the matchup after winning both the previous meetings. The first matchup took place during the 2011 season, with the Tigers winning it 43-19. The second game, in 2016, was much tighter, with Clemson winning it by just 30-24.
The Tigers have played 12 games against SBC opponents. They are 12-0 against the conference, not losing a game yet to a team out of the Sun Belt. On the other hand, Troy has not won any games against ACC opponents. The Trojans are 0-11 against the conference.
Clemson must not take any of this for granted, though, and come out firing. Much like in the App State game last season, a strong statement needs to be made this weekend.
How the Tigers Make their Statement
In order for the Tigers to get the win and make their statement, they must do two things. Establish a run game on offense and shut down the run on defense.
Offensively, it is going to be very hard for Clemson to do anything if it can’t find a run game. As talented as Cade Klubnik is, some of the pressure needs to be taken off of him. Being able to run the ball allows the offense to not be one dimensional, which keeps defenders honest.
When teams know you can only throw the ball, it allows defenses to get after the quarterback. That is what LSU did, and Troy will attempt to do the same. The Trojans love bringing pressure, especially in passing situations. Running the ball well will make it tougher for them to do so.
Defensively, the Tigers have to shut down the run game. Troy ran the ball all over the Nicholls defense, especially in the second half. The Trojans’ run game is the foundation of everything they do.
Troy running back Tae Meadows finished the game with 186 yards rushing and a touchdown in 23 carries. Quarterback Goose Crowder can also run the ball well, rushing for 43 yards and a touchdown.
Troy wants to run the ball at a good clip, specifically at the start of the game. That way, the Trojans can then get into their play action pass game. Crowder threw three touchdown passes in the game. They were all play-action pass concepts set up by the strong ground game. Crowder is not amazing, dropping straight back, but can dice defenses up with run fakes and booting out of the pocket. Clemson can shut all of that down by stopping the run first.
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