The Armed Forces Bowl preceded the Dollar General Bowl on Friday night and, in the former, the defenses could do few things right.
In the latter? Well, the script was flipped and it was the offenses who had trouble getting going.
Ohio turned the ball over five times -- four in the first half -- and Troy chipped in with two more, but ended up with a close 28-23 win that was sloppy and entertaining at the same time.
Bobcats quarterback Greg Windham threw for 315 yards and two touchdowns but had a night to forget otherwise with four interceptions and a lost fumble. The ground game for the MAC runners up wasn’t much better as no player had over 25 yards rushing on the night.
The bulk of those turnovers allowed Troy to find the end zone despite a lackluster offensive outing, turning three takeaways into three touchdowns. Signal-caller Brandon Silvers, who grew up about an hour away from Ladd-Peebles Stadium, didn’t do much better holding on to the ball (two interceptions) and could only muster 235 yards and a score through the air.
Despite all those struggles and the inability to really put away a pesky Ohio team that has played just about everybody close, Troy still came away with the victory and hit the double-digit win marker for the first time as a program.
It capped an impressive season for the Trojans and one of the bigger turnarounds in all of college football under first year head coach Neal Brown.
