Head Coach: Gerad Parker is entering his 2nd season as the head coach of the Trojans with a 4-8 record. He took over the program coming off back to back Sun Belt titles but there were wholesale changes that made last year a reset. Now he looks to kick this program back into gear.
Program Outlook: Troy is a program with lots of tradition. This program has the most Sun Belt championships with 8 conference titles. They also have 2 D2 championships to go along with it. Troy has a great fanbase and support. Sure it’s in a small town, but it’s not far outside of Montgomery, AL. It’s great but competitive recruiting territory and this is a program that has a great history of finding great players from the Juco ranks. Troy doesn’t get the notice of fellow Sun Belt programs like Appalachian State, Louisiana or James Madison but they absolutely need to be in the conversation as one of the best.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Troy ranks 76th in the country returning 52.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players for the Trojans starts with QB Goose Crowder, he was a promising player entering last year but unfortunately didn’t get to do a whole lot due to injuries, now he gets another shot. Tucker Kilcrease returns as well, he started a couple games as well last season. The Trojans lost their best RB but the duo of Jordan Lovett and Tae Meadows will be really good, especially if more experience and size up front helps pave more run lanes. Troy will need to figure out the receiver position, they have a reliable target in Peyton Higgins but they’ll rely on young guys or maybe a portal player like Kristian Tate (Delaware State) to step up. This is Troy so you know this team has some dawgs on defense. That is led by LB Jordan Stringer who is one of the best in the conference and Steve Cattledge is another good backer next to him, overall it’s a strong and loaded group. The defensive line returns a lot of experience led by Julian Peterson on the inside and this unit shuts down the run but didn’t provide a good enough pass rush, that’s where Elijah Davis comes, he was a top Juco transfer heading into South Carolina last year but ended up buried behind a lot of NFL guys. They have some interesting players in the secondary this starts with the redemption tour of David Daniel-Sisavanh who was a former star recruit and factor at Georgia before missing all of last season due to a violation of team rules. Justin Powe is already one of the stars of the defense at the other safety spot and Devin Lafayette is a guy who can be used in a variety of spots. Troy also brought in Missouri State transfer Kaleno Levine to help at corner.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Troy will go up against a very difficult schedule. The non-conference features challenging games against Clemson, Memphis and Buffalo who are all expected to be near the top of their respective conferences. Their FCS foe is Nicholls who is a solid FCS team and shouldn’t be taken lightly. The Sun Belt schedule is tough, considering the non-conference slate it probably wasn’t preferable to have a lot of the toughest games (potentially) all front loaded early on. Their draw from the East division is Georgia State and Old Dominion which on the surface doesn’t seem bad but Old Dominion may actually turn out to be really good this year. It’s going to be critical to avoid getting discouraged if the Clemson game goes rough because there’s a lot of challenges after that.
Final Thoughts: Troy is a program you can’t count out from the Sun Belt hunt. This is a program that will be led by the defense once again but it needs the offense to be at least a little more productive to help. Of course, the defense could help out as well, Troy’s offense took decent care of the ball but the Trojans still had a -7 turnover margin because their defense couldn’t force any takeaways. Start forcing more turnovers and you’ll see Troy pull off more close wins.
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