Historic season of success for TROY Football

TROY Head Coach Jon Sumrall knew exactly what it was going to take to build a winning team at TROY because he had been part of a successful program at TROY as an Assistant Coach when the Trojans won double-digit games in 2016 and 2017.

What maybe he didn’t know was how quickly he would be able to not only turn around a program that had won just five games in each of the previous three seasons but return the Trojans to a championship-level program. In his first season leading the Trojans, Sumrall’s 2022 squad not only returned to the top of the Sun Belt Conference but did so in emphatic fashion.

TROY went 12-2 en route to the program’s seventh Sun Belt Conference championship and a win over No. 22 UTSA in the Cure Bowl — TROY’s fifth straight bowl win.

The Trojans’ record-breaking season propelled the program into the College Football Playoff Top 25 for the first time in school history following TROY’s blowout of Coastal Carolina in the Sun Belt Championship Game, which was held in TROY’s Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Following the win over UTSA, TROY finished the season ranked in the final Associated Press Top 25 and USA Today Coaches Poll for the first time in program history.

Owner of the nation’s second-longest winning streak at 11 games, TROY finished the season ranked No. 19 in the AP Top 25 and No. 20 in the USA Today Coaches Poll. The Trojans posted the most wins of any program in the state of Alabama.

“This was a special season for our program, and it starts and ends with our players,” Sumrall said. “They believed in our vision for what we wanted this program to be, and each of them bought in on a personal level and committed themselves to excellence. The 2022 TROY Football team will be remembered as one of the best teams in this program’s long and proud history for what our players and our staff accomplished together as a team. I could not be more proud of these young men and this team.”

Armed with one of the best defenses in the country, TROY held all 14 of its opponents below their season average in scoring, including three of the top 25 scoring teams in the country — UTSA, Western Kentucky and App State. The Trojans limited UTSA to just 10 offensive points in the Cure Bowl, with three of those 10 points coming on a 4-play, 7-yard drive following a turnover. The Roadrunners entered averaging 38.7 points per game.

The Trojans held eight of its 14 opponents scoreless in the fourth quarter and allowed an average of just 3.64 points in the final 15 minutes of the game.

TROY ranked eighth nationally in turnovers gained, 14th in sacks, eighth in scoring defense, 19th in total defense and 24th in rushing defense. Individually, Carlton Martial, Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year, earned

All-America honors for the fourth season after finishing third nationally, averaging 11.2 tackles per game and as the all-time leader in career tackles at the FBS level.

Offensively, Kimani Vidal became the 11th 1,000-yard rusher in program history while quarterback Gunnar Watson continued to move up the all-time leaderboard in program history. Starting center Jake Andrews was invited to the NFL Combine and played in the Senior Bowl alongside Martial, while left tackle Austin Stidham was a finalist for the Campbell Trophy.

The Sun Belt Championship was TROY’s seventh since 2006, ranking as the sixth most in the country, behind Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Boise State. TROY’s 12 wins tied a program record for the most in a season and rank as the most by a Trojan team at the FBS level.

Off the field, it was just as successful of a season as record crowds packed The Vet all year long, including the stadium’s first sellout when TROY hosted Army on Veterans Day weekend. TROY’s seven home games posted an average of 25,661 fans in attendance, a singleseason record by more than 1,000 fans per game.