The Trojan defense looks to rebound after their game against Southern Miss on Saturday afternoon.

The Trojans fell to the Golden Eagles 47-42 and allowed 626 yards off offense.

“In the first game (against Campbell), we didn’t get exposed a whole lot. Different team, different style of play,” head coach Chip Lindsey said. “We had some young players and when you have young players they’re smart and they know what to do, but how many young freshmen come right into college football and are really successful? Very few.”

It didn’t take for defensive coordinator Brandon Hall to review the tape from Saturday. In fact, when he did watch it, he made sure to watch it more than once.

“Well it was 82 plays,” Hall said. “First time I didn’t go to church in a while. Got up here about 7. I think I’ve watched it four times.”

The Trojans offense suffered a few injuries during the game and so did the defense. The Trojans were without two starting safeties in Melvin Tyus and Kyle Nixon.

“By the second quarter we were down to two true freshmen in there,” Hall said. “Dunmore started the game and Dell Pettus came in at free safety.”

After succeeding at times on first down, Hall believes Troy’s main weakness came on second down, leading to manageable third down conversions.

“The biggest thing, we won first down, lost second down all day long and wernen’t able to get off the field on third down,” Hall said.

Troy’s biggest problems occurred when trying to slow down receivers Jaylond Adams and Quez Watkins, who combined to rack up 389 yards.

“A couple of those catches by (Watkins) were great plays,” Hall said. “I was more discouraged about the uncovered. That’s what we can’t have, guys running down the middle of the field wide open.”

The hope is that both Tyus and Nixon will be back in the lineup this weekend, but Lindsey also hopes that Saturday’s performance could lead to better things down the road when it comes to the play of his young secondary.

“All in all those guys are going to keep working and get better. By the end of the year I think we will have those guys and they will be playing pretty good football.”