CLEMSON, S.C. — It's going to take more than a 24-point loss to diminish Troy coach Larry Blakeney's excitement about his team.
Blakeney liked the poise of his sophomore quarterback and his ability to spread the ball around. Eleven different receivers caught passes in the Trojans' 43-19 loss Saturday at Clemson.
"I'm excited about this bunch that we have. We came up here and showed that we can play this game," Blakeney said. "But at times, we didn't play as well as I'd like to."
Troy led 16-13 at halftime, and the lead might have been bigger if two first-half fumbles hadn't led to a pair of Clemson field goals. The Trojans outgained the Tigers 195-121 in the half, converting 4 of 9 first downs, while stopping Clemson on all eight of its third-down tries.
The defense stopped Clemson again on the first possession of the second half. But the Tigers scored on five of their next six possessions to keep Troy from its first win over a BCS team since it beat Oklahoma State in 2007.
"When you play a big team like this, you can't play one half," safety Bryden Trawick said. "You have to be able to put four quarters together, and I think that if we do that we are going to be all right."
Corey Robinson went 24-for-42 for 258 yards, a touchdown and one interception for Troy, while D.J. Taylor ran five times for 63 yards for the five-time defending Sun Belt Conference champions.
Eric Thomas had three catches for 63 yards for Troy and Justin Albert had six catches for 45 yards.
"I told our group that I saw some things today that make me think we can have a good football team," Blakeney said,
Temperatures soared into the 90s for the afternoon kickoff at Clemson's Death Valley, and Blakeney said his team suffered after halftime.
"We had some guys that were cramping in the second half," the coach said.
The Trojans had to prepare for a Clemson team with a new starting quarterback in Tajh Boyd, a new offensive coordinator in Chad Morris and a bunch of freshmen. Twenty-four of the 70 players who took the field for the Tigers on Saturday were freshmen.
Boyd was 20-for-30 for 264 yards and three touchdowns. Freshman Sammy Watkins had seven catches for 81 yards. His first reception went for a 33-yard touchdown. His roommate and classmate Mike Bellamy took his first carry 75 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. In all, freshmen gained 266 of Clemson's 468 yards.
The Tigers started rough. Clemson's first half left already-anxious Tigers fans hot and angry. Clemson was 0-for-8 on third-down conversions and had just four first downs. Boyd looked uncomfortable in the pocket with several bad throws and a few near-interceptions broken up by his receivers.
"Troy is a championship team. They have five Sun Belt championships under their belt," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "I told the guys at halftime that the only way to beat them was to knock them out of our house, and we did a good job to knock them out in the second half."
The Tigers' first third-down conversion of the day seemed to give Boyd the confidence he had been lacking. He made a nice throw just over the shoulder of wide-open tight end Dwayne Allen for a 54-yard touchdown that put Clemson up for good at 20-16 with 6:56 to go in the third quarter.
The Tigers finally seemed to grasp Morris' offense on the next drive. Boyd completed all nine of his passes, broken up by a few nifty runs by Andre Ellington. Boyd ended the drive with his best pass of the day, threading a ball through two defenders to Jaron Brown for a 7-yard score that put Clemson ahead 26-16 just before the end of the third quarter.
Freshman quarterback Cole Stoudt came in late in the fourth quarter and led the Tigers on a 42-yard touchdown drive where only freshmen ran or caught the ball. The drive ended on a 1-yard TD run by D.J. Howard.
Clemson kicker Chad Catanzaro made three field goals, all 45 yards or more, but he missed an extra point.
"We can't do anything about them," Blakeney said of Clemson." We have to do for us and that means we have to practice to get better, we have to get well and we have to get to where we don't give up big plays like we did."