#45 Troy

Troy, AL

Veterans Memorial Stadium October 24, 2020 Georgia St. 36 – Troy 34 (ESPN Recap)

I hope that no other game takes more effort to attend than this one.

Waking up in a Birmingham hotel with plenty of time to get to the 3pm CST kickoff in Troy. I grabbed brunch at Cahawba House for some inexpensive southern cooking. It was decent but not as good as Southern Kitchen.

Jumped in a 1:27 Lyft to go to my hotel in Montgomery where I checked into my hotel for Saturday night. The rain on the drive was torrential and I was worried that the wetness would persist throughout the game. Next, take a Lyft that was supposed to be 50 minutes but ended up being 1:20 due to rain down to Troy, Alabama's best BBQ spot Hook’s Pit BBQ. Watched the UNC/NC St game and Auburn/Ole Miss game at Hook’s. About 45 minutes before kickoff I went to call a Lyft to the game and then things got concerning: no Lyft, no Uber, no Taxi service in Troy. I proceeded to get shot down by two groups of Troy fans at the restaurant to give me a ride to the stadium. One guy engaged in a friendly conversation with me and then when I asked if I could ride with his family to the game he pretended I didn’t exist and walked away without responding. I approached another fan and asked him if the distance to the stadium was walkable (it was highway for 1.7 miles). His response was “everything in life is walkable. I wouldn’t walk it…but…yeah…you can walk.” Cool Troy fans…cool.

So I walk alongside a wet highway without sidewalks from Hook’s to Veteran’s Memorial Stadium. At this point, I am bitter that there isn’t ride share, that it’s not safe, that I don’t have tickets yet, and that the walk is hilly and unattractive. I am also beginning to stress about how I am going to make it back to Montgomery after the game. 57 miles isn’t really walkable buddy.

No free tickets. No scalped tickets. Had to walk to the baseball stadium to buy a ticket for $30 (because for whatever reason, the box office at the football stadium entrance was closed). I was at the stadium for kickoff but not inside until the tail end of Georgia State’s opening TD drive.

The game ends up being excellent and the stadium was beautiful. It was Homecoming for Troy (congrats Lucy on Homecoming Queen!). There were 7 turnovers in the game, all of which were massive momentum swings including two defensive scores and an interception in the end zone. There was also two missed FGs, a blocked XP, two 2-pt conversion attempts, an on-sides kick attempt, four 4th down plays (a 5th was called off due to penalty), and big swings and lead changes coming down to the final 2 minutes with Troy getting its third possession trailing 28-36 by causing a fumble in an inexplicable scenario for Georgia St. Troy converted a key 4th down at the +30 yd line with a minute left, and then scored a TD with 37 seconds left. However, the 2-pt conversion pass attempt was literally thrown about 18 yards out of bounds.

Still life with an on-sides kick which was initially ruled recovered by Troy, but then on review, it was determined that Troy touched the ball ~1 foot early and the game was over.

I won Ga St +2 for the game but lost a 2H TTO on Troy. Would have won if Troy converted the 2-pt conversion at the end, had scored on the opening drive of 2H when they were inside the 10 when they threw an interception in the end zone, or if they had kept the ball after the onsides and walked off with a GW FG.

I liked the Troy QB (#12 Free) other than the last attempt on the 2-pt convo, and GSU’s RB (#28 Gregg) & TE (#45 Carter). Gregg and Carter were responsible for all of the key conversion plays for GSU’s offense. Troy crushed GSU in passing stats 407/169, but GSU crushed Troy in rushing and TOP 210/40.

The first Troy punt was horrendous and looked like a random high school punt. I captured the second punt on video, which was equally bad. All subsequent punts were good to go which was unfortunate because I was going to really enjoy more of them.

The Front Porch was the place to be after the game, but the line was too long and I had pre-scheduled a taxi to come pick me up. A taxi? Yeah, I ended up having to call multiple Montgomery cab companies in order to find one who would come get me. This trip was a case study on doing cost calculation for rental car vs. Lyft trade off, but it backfiring because Lyft/Uber was not available. at one of the destination towns. (Note for anyone else going to Troy, AL…you will need a car/driver or should plan on walking long distances.)

Juan from Wilson Cab company was the man on the way back. Former truck driver. We agreed that Troy campus was pretty but the city was ugly.