The Daily Reveille sports staff shares their thoughts ahead of LSU’s game against Troy.
Jarrett Major | Trojan War
In the mythological Trojan War, Troy was defeated by the cunning of the Greeks’ own Coach O, Odysseus, who recommended the use of the Trojan horse. In LSU’s war against the Troy Trojans, it should not require brilliant thinking by Ed Orgeron to pull off a miracle win against the Trojans, but it might. In the last meeting in 2008, Les Miles pulled off his most Les Miles-esque win over the Trojans by coming back from 30
Like Odysseus, Orgeron and LSU should defeat the Trojans. He has his own mighty warriors in “Greedy” Williams, DJ Chark, Derrius Guice, and the Tigers. Unfortunately, like Odysseus, Orgeron’s journey after Troy will not be easy. Odysseus faced many challenges far from home after the Trojan War.
Orgeron and the Tigers hit the road to take on Florida next week, in a schedule that features four more SEC road games. Orgeron’s odyssey will begin with his own version of the Trojan War tonight.

Brandon Adam | Stopping Troy’s offense

Troy averages 450 yards of offense, which ranks No. 33 in the country.
The Trojans are led by all-conference senior quarterback Brandon Silvers who averages 271 yards passing a game. LSU struggled with Syracuse’s Eric Dungey last week, and Silvers has the ability to do the same.

The Tigers will have to solve issues at safety with injuries to senior Ed Paris and junior John Battle. If Battle isn’t able to play LSU will have to rotate a trio of freshmen and sophomore Xavier Lewis at the two safety positions.

Chris Caldarera | Winning the Super Bowl

LSU is the red circle on every Troy football player’s calendar.

The Tigers are the biggest opponent Troy will play all year, and LSU coach Ed Orgeron went so far as to call this game Troy’s “Super Bowl” on his radio show.

Although it’s doubtful that LSU will have the same “Super Bowl” mentality, this game is of greater importance than most fans think.

Troy is LSU’s last non-conference opponent of the 2017 season meaning that this Saturday is the Tigers’ last chance to iron out the numerous wrinkles still left in the offense, defense, and special teams.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Trojans will be playing with a “nothing to lose” attitude, and LSU has had a troubling history with Troy in recent years.

LSU has been on the cusp of losing to Troy both times in the last two meetings between these teams, engineering last-quarter comebacks in both 2004 and 2008 against the Trojans.

With so many issues still left in this LSU team’s game, taking the Trojans lightly again could prove costly for the Tigers.

Glen West | Myles Brennan

For the second consecutive week, freshman quarterback Myles Brennan is expected to play some meaningful snaps for the Tigers against Troy.

In the 35-26 victory over Syracuse last week, Brennan played most of the third quarter and part of the fourth for the purple and gold.  

Brennan went 4-of-6 for 75 yards with one interception and was replaced by Danny Etling towards the end of the fourth quarter after the Orange went on a 16-0 run to cut the lead to two points.

This week it will be interesting to see if Matt Canada will let Brennan air it out a few times as Brennan mostly completed dump offs and checkdowns last week. Brennan has been receiving first team reps in practice this week in anticipation for more playing time this week.

Orgeron said that Etling is still the starting quarterback and the time that Brennan will receive is purely for playing time experience.

Kennedi Landry | Punt and kick returns

LSU has had a lot of work to do on special teams this week after a subpar performance on punt returns against Syracuse and very little production on kickoff returns all season.

Chark had been doing well up until Syracuse, with five returns for 99 yards and one touchdown but struggled to field a single punt against the Orange.

Orgeron accepted all the blame, saying that staff did a poor job of coaching Chark on his returns. There are no plans to change the returner, but LSU hopes the problem will be an easy fix this week.

Kickoff returns did not fare much better against Syracuse, with freshman Clyde Edwards-Helaire returning just one for 13 yards.

Edwards-Helaire has been consistent through the first four games of the season, with six returns for 125 yards on the season and an average of 20.8 yards per carry.

Regardless of the reasoning behind the execution on special teams, LSU needs to do better. The offense is too often stuck inside their own 20-yard line to start a long drive down the field.