Sharing the same state with traditional college football powersAlabama and Auburn, Troy University is just a small blip on thenational radar.
Troy mirrors many of its fellow members of the Sun BeltConference with an enrollment of 18,000 students and its MovieGallery stadium seating 30,000 patrons.
That small-school mentality is the motivation for practicing andplaying harder to be noticed on the national scene, Trojansdefensive end Demarcus Ware said.
“I like that — not being respected but gainingrespect,” Ware said. “That’s just the way I wasbrought up. I’ve always had to gain respect.”
The 6-foot-4-inch senior leads the Troy defense and is tied forthe national lead in sacks with nine. Ware also is ranked fifth inthe NCAA with 14 tackles for loss this season.
Those numbers earned the Auburn, Ala. native a spot on theLombardi Award watch list as one of the top lineman in the nationon either offense or defense.
Coming off a 13-9 loss to conference foe Arkansas State, whichLSU defeated earlier this season by a count of 53-3, Ware said heis ready to get back to the fundamentals of Trojans football.
“We’re going to practice hard this week and try toget that team unity back,” Ware said. “I want to playto the best of my ability and make plays.”
Getting fired up to play an LSU team that put up 464 yards oftotal offense ought not be a problem for the Troy defense, Waresaid. The Trojans defense has yielded an average of only 297.2yards and 17 points per game this season.
“Being on defense you always want to go against other goodoffenses,” Ware said. “We [as a defense] try to bringeverything we have to the table.”
Setting the table on the offensive side of the ball for Troywill be fifth-year senior tailback DeWhitt Betterson.
Betterson became the first Trojan to eclipse the 1,000-yard marksince 1996 with 1,161 yards rushing last season.
Through six games this season, Betterson has rushed for 591yards with five touchdowns, averaging 4.7 yards per carry.
Betterson said he knows it will not be easy to score against astingy LSU defense, especially with defensive end Marcus Spears onthe field.
“LSU’s defense is very fast and I know they’vegot a tremendous defensive end in Spears,” Betterson said.”Playing against LSU, you try to set your standards high. Iwant to establish myself in the running game and just takeadvantage of the opportunity to play against LSU and try to playthe perfect ball game.”
As the Trojans second-leading rusher in school history,Betterson needs 304 yards to take the record. But none of thoserecords really matter right now with another Division I-Aheavyweight to battle in LSU, Betterson said. This is the time topull it together after a disappointing loss to Arkansas State, hesaid.
“We’ve got to try to make them [the team] understandthat we’ve got an opportunity and that opportunity is to playa top program in the nation,” Betterson said. “Beingfrom a small-time school we don’t get much exposure. We mightnot get national exposure, but we’ve got to make the most ofthat exposure this weekend.”
“We’re disappointed. We’re embarrassed, and wedon’t want to be embarrassed at LSU.”