#182 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Troy -2.5 over James Madison, Saturday at 7 PM ET - Troy is back home after getting waxed @ Kansas State last week which wasn’t a big surprise as the Wildcats are one of the better teams in the country. In that loss we were impressed with Troy’s defense as they held a very good KSU offense to 5.7 YPP and on the ground the Cats averaged less than 4.0 YPC. It was a 2 score game early in the 4th quarter when KSU added a few late TD’s to make this score look worse than in probably should have been at 42-13. The Trojans won their first game big over Stephen F Austin (a decent FCS team) despite turning the ball over 4 times they had 523 yards of offense. Now we get last year’s Sun Belt Champs (Troy), who finished 12-2 last season, back at home with a light number. We haven’t been overly impressed with JMU through their first 2 games. They are 2-0 but wins over FCS Bucknell, who has a 5-21 record their last 26 games, and a come from behind win over a bad Virginia team last week. That was a huge win for James Madison taking down the instate big boy UVA but let’s not forget JMU was nearly a TD favorite on the road in that game and won 36-35 on a TD with under 1:00 minute remaining in the game. The Cavs are one of the worst Power 5 teams in the nation and JMU was outplayed in that 1 point win. UVA led that game by double digits in the 4th quarter, outgained the Dukes on a YPP basis, and the Cavs true freshman QB (back up but playing for injured starter) who stands 5’11 and has zero experience threw for 377 yards on the James Madison defense. They put up 35 points on JMU after scoring 10 points in their opener vs Tennessee. UVA averaged 6.5 YPP vs James Madison last weekend after averaging just 3.0 YPP vs the Vols. Looks like we have a big edge defensively with the host here and the Trojans also have a very experienced QB Watson (4 year starter) has thrown for over 7,000 yards in his career. Dating back to early in the 2021 season, Troy has now won 11 of their last 12 home games and we’re more than comfortable laying this small number with them on Saturday.