Everything you need to know for Saturday’s No. 13 Coastal Carolina at Troy football game

Saturday’s game

Who: No. 13 Coastal Carolina (10-0, 7-0 Sun Belt Conference) at Troy (5-5, 3-3 SBC)

When: 3 p.m. (Eastern)

Where: Veterans Memorial Stadium, Troy, Alabama

Occasion: CCU’s regular season finale

TV: Online on ESPN+

Radio: WRNN 99.5 FM

Online audio: https://goccusports.com/watch/

Live stats: Through www.Troy.statbroadcast.com and GameTracker

Last meeting

CCU won 36-35 on Nov. 2, 2019 in Conway, SC

Coastal Carolina

Strength: Defensive front seven

Weakness: Receiver depth

Troy

Strength: QB, wide receivers

Weakness: Rush offense

Key matchup

Coastal Carolina’s defensive front seven vs. Troy quarterback Gunnar Watson: Coastal has best defended the pass this season with a rush primarily generated by the front four of Tarron Jackson, C.J. Brewer, Jeffrey Gunter and Jerrod Clark – three of the four have been named Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Week – with assistance from linebackers Teddy Gallagher, Silas Kelly and Enock Makonzo. Troy likes to play up-tempo on offense and Watson, a sophomore, has completed 186 of 264 passes (70.5 completion percentage) for 1,881 yards and 15 touchdowns with six interceptions. Five Trojans have more than 25 catches.

“He’s a special player,” CCU head coach Jamey Chadwell said. “He gets the ball out quick and he’s got some really good players to get it to. The thing that impresses you is he knows how to manage the pocket well. He can have a lot of trash going on in that pocket, and he just knows how to really move around it and do a good job of finding his next target if the first option is not there. He throws it as well as anybody in this league, and they know how to get their players in space to make plays.”

Troy is 23rd nationally with an average of 283.8 passing yards per game and isn’t afraid to largely eschew the run, rushing for just 104 yards per game and 3.4 yards per rush this season, so the Chants should be able to make the Trojans one-dimensional and focus on stopping Watson. “Our balance is not really run and pass, it’s more who touches the ball,” Troy coach Chip Lindsey said. “I think for us, we’ve got to move the football whether we run it or throw it. Some of that is determined by how many guys are playing in the box and so forth. We did attempt to run it some the other day and not very well. We do need to improve obviously, but we need to improve in a lot of areas.”

Players to watch

Coastal Carolina

Junior receiver Jaivon Heiligh (6-2, 190): He leads the team in receptions (41), receiving yards (682) and receiving touchdowns (8) but had a streak of catches in consecutive games snapped at 24 last week.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Grayson McCall (6-3, 200): The first-year starter has completed 127 of 189 passes (67.2 percent) for 1,832 yards and 20 touchdowns with just one interception, and has rushed for 433 yards and five scores on 86 carries.

Senior defensive end Tarron Jackson (6-2, 260): Three-time Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Week has recorded 46 tackles, 12.5 for loss, 8.5 sacks, 16 quarterback hurries and three forced fumbles.

Troy

Senior receiver Kaylon Geiger (5-10, 170): He is part of a talented receiver corps and has a team-high 55 receptions for 649 yards and three touchdowns.

Junior defensive tackle Will Choloh (6-0, 289): He is the highest rated pass rusher among interior defensive lineman nationally, per Pro Football Focus, with a 90.3 grade, while his 29 pressures rank third and his 83.3 overall grade is fifth.

Junior left tackle Austin Stidham (6-5, 291): According to Pro Football Focus, he ranks second nationally among all offensive tackles with a 98.5 pass blocking efficiency rating and has been called for just one penalty this season. He’ll likely be matched up against Jackson most or all of the game.

He said it

“After this last weekend, we were called a bunch of thugs and all these different things and it really upset me, based off one little play that people saw, a blurb. And that’s not who we are. Our guys play hard, they play the right way and they play for each other. So I was disappointed that certain people tried to push that narrative out there about our team. If you follow our program closely, we’ve got a lot of good young people on this team that try to do things the right way.” – Chadwell

“Their D-Line is phenomenal. They’ve got the best D-Line in our league I think. They’re big guys, but they’re very athletic. Several of them were there last year, but they’ve added a piece or two to the puzzle that’s made them even that much better. I think their quarterback on offense is a difference-maker for them for sure from last year, and their coaches have done a really nice job of putting them in good positions. . . . They’re just a really solid football team playing at a high level.” – Lindsey on CCU

“It was really exciting for us because of getting a lot of our team back together I think for the first time in over a month. We got everybody back so that’s an awesome feeling. We had a really rough go there for three or four weeks with covid. But that’s part of it and really our guys responded last week with a great week of practice. I think that’s what led to our better play on Saturday. I thought it was a solid effort all the way around in all three phases.” – Lindsey

Scouting report

At No. 11 in the AP Top 25 Poll and No. 13 in the College Football Playoff rankings, Coastal is the highest-ranked team that Troy has ever hosted, and the Trojans are 2-25 all-time against nationally-ranked opponents. So the Chants have become a trophy for their fellow Sun Belt teams.

“We’re looking forward to the opportunity to play a really good Coastal Carolina team that is having one of those magical years. It’ll be a big challenge but it’s exciting to get this opportunity to play at home,” Lindsey said. “Getting back to playing good football is what we’re excited about. The opportunity to play Coastal, who obviously is having a special year, you get a chance to play a good football team and get a big win it would be awesome. It would definitely be a shot in the arm for us to finish the season the right way and hopefully get in some postseason play.”

Troy will finish a 12-game regular season next Thursday against Louisiana-Monroe, and will be a more formidable opponent than its record indicates.

The game is rescheduled from Nov. 14, when Troy had both coronavirus and injury issues that decimated at least one position group. The Trojans lost three consecutive games from Nov. 7-28 to Georgia Southern, Middle Tennessee and Appalachian State.

But Lindsey said the team is just about full strength again and many of the players are fresh because they haven’t played in a few weeks due to coronavirus issues and protocol, and the Trojans beat South Alabama 29-0 Saturday. CCU beat South Alabama 23-6 on Nov. 7.

While some Troy players had COVID-19 symptoms, some were just quarantined through contact tracing and others were asymptomatic. “I do think our energy level for the amount of weeks we’ve been going at this is pretty good,” Lindsey said. “. . . You never want to go through the deal we did because COVID-19 is a serious thing. . . . Our team never flinched and we stayed together and kept grinding every day with the next-man-up mentality, and that’s the way we decided we were going to approach this entire year.”

Coastal is coming off a big 22-17 win over BYU after having ESPN College GameDay broadcast from Brooks Stadium on Saturday morning before the game, and has the Sun Belt title game next week against No. 19 Louisiana.

Chadwell, who has been vociferous this week about believing the Sun Belt should have canceled this game because it will give idle Louisiana a competitive advantage next week, said following practice on Wednesday that his team wasn’t having its best practices up to that point in the week, in part because several players were dealing with minor injuries coming off the physical BYU game.

“It’s been a challenge probably more so this week than anything to be honest with you because of what’s at stake and what happened this past Saturday,” Chadwell said. “. . . This is the biggest challenge we’ve had as a coaching staff and our players, and they’ve handled everything really well up to this point and I’ll expect them to do that. We’ve got to make sure we block out all those things and really try to focus on this game and what we’re doing and playing our best.”

Watson completed 34 of 41 passes for 297 yards and three touchdowns while looking like the Michelin Man with thick pads to protect fractured ribs in Troy’s win last week. He had been inconsistent in two previous outings after returning from the rib injury.

“He’s a tough guy,” Lindsey said. “I’ve been so impressed with how he’s handled this situation with him. I’m really pleased with his decision-making Saturday. He’s fought through a couple things, especially from the quarterback position that make it really hard. He’s tough guy, that’s why he’s really respected on our team.”

Troy has held its past five opponents to an average of 19.4 points, and four of its last five opponents to 20 points or less. The Trojans lead the country with four defensive touchdowns scored, and have scored 12 times off their 13 forced turnovers.

“We ran to the ball and we played with a sense of urgency and a lot of excitement,” Lindsey said of last week’s shutout. “Really this year we’ve made a lot of progress on that side of the ball and the good thing is we’ve got a lot of them back because we’re a young team and I’m excited about that group growing as a unit.”

Notes

▪Coastal is trying to go 11-0 for the second time in program history, joining 2014, when it finished 12-2.

▪Coastal has won 11 straight going back to last year’s season-ending win over Texas State.

▪Lindsey is trying to finish the season at .500 as Trojans coach. He’s 10-12 in his two years in Troy, where he was hired after two years as Auburn’s offensive coordinator.

▪Troy punter Jack Martin’s net punting average of 45.7 yards leads the country among players with at least 20 punts.

▪With the game broadcast online on ESPN+, it’s just the second CCU game this season not nationally televised on either FoxSports1, ESPN, ESPNU or ESPN2.

▪Troy has the most wins in the Sun Belt since 2004 with an 81-47 record within the conference.

Line

CCU -13.5

Prediction

Coastal Carolina 34, Troy 20: Troy gets CCU in perhaps a vulnerable moment on the road between BYU and the conference championship game, but the Chants have risen to the occasion in every prior instance this season.

This story was originally published November 13, 2020 at 1:26 AM with the headline "Everything you need to know for Saturday’s No. 13 Coastal Carolina at Troy football game."