Here's a video with linebacker Kanorris Davis that I think you will want to watch.
Wish I had more player personnel stuff to give you, but I don't. That's probably good news. The depth chart doesn't look any different than what I saw last week. Injury-wise, obviously RB D.J. Taylor is out. CB Ethan Davis, I would imagine, is also out as he hasn't practiced yet this fall. Freshman running back Daron White could be ready to play, but he's had a high ankle sprain.
"(In Saturday's mock scrimmage) he ran a kickoff back for a long run," Troy head coach Larry Blakeney said. "He didn’t quite score. He looked like he was improving. He ran like a deer and he got up limping. A high ankle sprain is a tough injury. I’ve talked to him a lot along the way. He’s getting better and we need him to get better. If he takes care of the ball, he’s pretty darn good."
Otherwise, "A few little dings but I think it’s football dings you have to overcome and play. I think all of them will be fine."
Blakeney on senior receiver Chip Reeves, who is back from academic woes: "He made some lemonade out of lemons. I hope he can stay well and have a great year."
**Asked defensive coordinator Jeremy Rowell about pressure on improving from last year statistically, or was it urgency to get better. Here's what he said:
"Anybody can put any word on it," Rowell said. "You want to win. I don’t care what you say or he says or they say or anybody else says. Does that bother me? Not one bit. The bottom line is win. Were we good last year? No. Did we coach any less hard? No. We weren’t as talented. When you’re not as talented, I don’t care who you are. It doesn’t matter about me. It matters about those 11 guys on the field.
(And are those guys better?) "No question. And in turn, you’re going to be better."
Rowell made reference to Oklahoma State, last year's No. 3 team in the polls but 107th in total defense. Troy was 113th. OSU was last in the country in total defensive plays with 1,089. Troy was 96th with 928 (source cfbstats.com). Alabama, which was first, was on the field for 720 defensive plays. Obviously types of offense can dictate that as well. What Rowell was getting at was that this year's team has 20-something guys who he feels like can play where last year, they had maybe 11. That's a big deal when your defense is on the field for X-many more plays.
"What we’ve got to do is have more guys which we feel good about, and we do," Rowell said. "If you’re going to play more snaps, you’ve got to play more people. We feel much better about where we are as a unit. Not just 11, but 22 and 24 and beyond that. We’ve got some guys who can play for us. Are they the best players we’ve ever had? I can’t tell you that right now. But there are more of them that will be going that we will feel good about."
From there, which position group has shown the most improvement?
"It’s hard not to say all," Rowell said. "We struggled last year. We didn’t have a lot of guys. The first group of guys, we still weren’t great but we could hang around a little while. After that, we ran out of gas. We’re better in every unit and not just talent, maturity, depth, all of it. How good we are? I’ll give you a better idea after Saturday.
"I feel better about us defensively than I have in several years."
**Turning this into story form for tomorrow's paper, but wanted to share some quotes from Rowell.
**No idea what rain from Tropical Storm (or is it Hurricane now??) Isaac would do to Troy's practice plans. Blakeney assumed we were all meteorologists and asked us. Troy takes Monday off but may encounter wet weather on Tuesday and Wednesday.
**Follow @SteveIrvine04 and @Tyler_Cantrell for some UAB tweets. I did a podcast with Tyler on Sunday for @BlazerTVdotcom and I believe that will be online sometime Tuesday.
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