PROVO — BYU’s impressive 55-3 win over Navy in a college football season opener seems like a long time ago. Nineteen days ago, to be exact.
So it will almost appear as if the No. 18-ranked Cougars are starting over on their 2020 season when they play host to upset-minded Troy on Saturday in front of no fans, but a national television audience.
Kickoff is at 8:15 p.m. MDT and the game at empty LaVell Edwards Stadium, a victim of the coronavirus pandemic, will be televised by ESPN.
BYU quarterback Zach Wilson and receiver Gunner Romney both said this week it feels a bit like a bowl game, because of the time gap between games. Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes began the week worried about the offense being “a little bit rusty,” and practices “out of rhythm,” but that subsided as the week wore on.
“Yeah, this has been a really weird situation that I have never experienced, going three weeks between games in the middle of a season,” said Romney, who had four catches for 134 yards in the beatdown of Navy.
“Our mantra this year is ‘Trojan Tough,’ and we are going to find out Saturday night how tough we are, where we are (as a program). We’re going on the road to face a top-20 opponent. This is one of the reasons our kids come to Troy, to get these opportunities.” — Troy coach Chip Lindsey
For the Trojans (1-0), who shook off the rust last week with a convincing 47-14 win at Middle Tennessee State, it could be considered their bowl game, in a way.
“Our mantra this year is ‘Trojan Tough,’ and we are going to find out Saturday night how tough we are, where we are (as a program),” Troy coach Chip Lindsey said Monday. “We’re going on the road to face a top-20 opponent. This is one of the reasons our kids come to Troy, to get these opportunities.”
Suffice it to say, BYU’s players don’t come to the program to play Sun Belt Conference teams at empty stadiums, but that’s what COVID-19 has wrought. The Cougars would have been at Minnesota this weekend, if their schedule hadn’t been blown up.
Wilson, who threw for 232 yards and two touchdowns on Sept. 7, said the key for the Cougars will be to treat the contest as if the opponent was from the Big Ten, or a similar Power Five conference.
“We just gotta be ready to play,” Wilson said. “We have to come out every single week like we are playing the best team in the country and play the best football we can possibly play. So that’s the message this week: guys just have to be ready to play.”
Nobody needs to remind BYU that it beat Tennessee and USC last year, but lost at Toledo and South Florida.
And Troy, despite being a two-touchdown underdog, is a better program that Toledo or South Florida, BYU coaches have cautioned for the better part of two weeks. Quarterback Gunnar Watson has NFL tools, they’ve said, and Troy has a cadre of capable receivers, most notably 6-foot-4, 222-pound senior Khalil McClain.
Unlike run-oriented Navy, Troy has the skill players needed to test BYU’s secondary, which took a blow this week when standout junior Chaz Ah You elected to have season-ending lower leg surgery.
A couple other seasoned defensive backs, D’Angelo Mandell and Chris Wilcox, were not available to play against Navy but the 6-2 Wilcox is expected to be back and match up with the uber-talented McClain.
“I expect them to be ready and bring their ‘A’ game,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. “A lot of people don’t understand how well (Chip) knows the game. This is going to be difficult for us as a team. We have to be ready to take them on. They won 47-14 and it wasn’t even that close.”
BYU will be without two other starters due to positive COVID-19 tests recently or contact tracing measures: right guard Tristen Hoge and senior linebacker Isaiah Kaufusi. There could be others, Sitake hinted Monday.
Troy athletic director Brent Jones tweeted Friday that Troy’s “COVID-19 tests came back negative and we are off to BYU!”
Meanwhile, Sitake said he’s not worried about losing momentum due to a 19-day layoff.
“The momentum comes from the guys wanting to get out there and get ready,” he said. “I mean, these guys are excited to just practice. I have seen the gratitude of these young men, the way they carry themselves every day. I don’t see it changing at all. They appreciated everything and they don’t take things for granted.”
Another interesting storyline will be the return of former BYU offensive line coach Ryan Pugh, now Troy’s offensive coordinator. BYU’s Grimes, who lured Pugh to Provo in 2018, knows his protege and Lindsey will have the Trojans primed to pull off a program-building upset.
“I have a lot of respect for the program, a lot of respect for those coaches on offense,” Grimes said. “I know they will come in here and do everything they can expecting to win the game.”
Those who tune in on television will see the first college football game played in the West this season, although that won’t last long with the Mountain West (Oct. 24) and Pac-12 (Nov. 6) saying they will start playing soon.
It could be a late-night shootout. Troy ran an incredible 97 offensive plays vs. MTSU; BYU was unstoppable against Navy, although the Middies clearly weren’t ready for tackle football.
Wilson said having three weeks off is “not going to affect this team. Guys are ready to go, and guys are handling their business. We are going to come out ready to play on Saturday.”
Romney said the offense’s confidence level “is at an all-time high right now. Everybody is bought in.”
Troy’s best defender is probably linebacker Carlton Martial, a Walter Camp preseason All-American and the Sun Belt Conference preseason Defensive Player of the Year.