Middletown 38 Troy 7

One of my favorite things about football season is visiting stadiums I haven't been to before. I thought Barnitz stadium was a pretty cool older stadium, with plenty of steel and cinderblocks and coated in the Middies' shade of purple. Actually, it reminded me quite a bit (except for the purple) of Troy Memorial Stadium before it was renovated. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera along, so I didn't get any photos.

In a 31-point loss, it would be quite a stretch for me to say that this was a game the Trojans should have won. So I won't say that. I will say, though, that it's a game they should have been in, at least. They essentially gave the game away with four lost fumbles, including one on their opening drive that was quite impressive to that point, and another within five yards of the endzone. Take those away and this is quite a different ballgame. I'm still not saying they would have won, but I'm not saying they wouldn't, either. It would have made it a lot more interesting, and it was still pretty interesting until it got ugly late. If these two teams played ten times, I don't think the spread would be 31 points again, and Troy would win their share (I'll say four of 'em).

And that's not to take anything away from Middletown, who showed themselves to be a really good team. They discovered early on that they couldn't find much success against the interior of Troy's defense, so they started attacking the edges. With their speed, that's where they found some success. Defensively, they did a very nice job of slowing down Troy's running game. The Trojans were able to get some yardage through the air, and even managed to break some long plays only to find their players being run down from behind.

So hopefully the Trojans can regroup and return to their first-week form when they return home next week to take on Fairborn. The Skyhawks took the Trojans down last year (as did Chaminade-Julienne), so that will be a nice test to see where the team is at.