New Troy athletics director Brent Jones said his school’s football team has become a victim of its own success when it comes to playing Power 5 opponents.

Jones, who was heavily involved with football scheduling during his three years as Troy’s deputy AD for external affairs, said last week that it’s no longer all that easy for the Trojans to secure football games with traditional power programs. Victories over LSU and Nebraska the last two years — in addition to a six-point loss at Clemson in 2016 — certainly plays a role, he said.

“It’s not near as easy as it was three years ago, that is 100 percent accurate,” Jones said in an interview Friday on Sports Drive on Mobile’s WNSP-FM. “There were a lot of people calling me when I first got here looking to schedule a game, and now, almost no one calls me. I’m having to call them and work different strategies and (personal) networks.”

The Trojans have been able to secure a home game vs. North Carolina State in 2020, along with future games at Missouri (2019), at Tennessee (2020), at South Carolina (2021) and at Southern Miss (2022), at Kansas State (2023) and at Clemson (2025). In addition, they’ve added a home-and-home with Mississippi State for 2026-27.

Jones, who took over as AD June 12 following Jeremy McClain’s departure for Southern Miss, said he’s hoping to continue the school’s current non-conference scheduling plan, which is one Power 5 opponent (AKA, a “money” game), two games (one home, one away) with fellow Group of 5 schools and then a home game against an FCS school from somewhere in the southeast. In addition to the Power 5 opponents, Troy has future home-and-homes set with Memphis, Western Kentucky and Southern Miss (it will finish series with Akron and Liberty this year, and with Massachusetts in 2020), as well as “one-off” home games against the likes of Campbell, Southern and Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

“We’re really excited about our scheduling philosophy, but it has gotten a lot tougher than it was three years ago,” Jones said. “That’s indicative of our success, and that’s the way we want it.”

Jones also noted that Troy set a school record and led the Sun Belt Conference in attendance last season at more than 24,000 fans per home game at Veterans Memorial Stadium, a remarkable achievement given that the school has fewer than 15,000 full-time students and Pike County (in which Troy is located) has a population of a little more than 33,000. Only Army and Appalachian State — which led the Sun Belt in attendance in 2016 and 2017 — reside in smaller communities among FBS football-playing schools, he said.

Of course, Troy’s continued success is not entirely guaranteed given that Neal Brown has left and taken his 31-8 record the last three years to West Virginia. The Trojans replaced him with Chip Lindsey, the former Auburn and Southern Miss offensive coordinator, whom Brown was quick to praise.

“Neal Brown, what he did for the program here at Troy has been phenomenal, and we wish him luck at West Virginia,” Jones said. “But to be able to hire a person like Chip Lindsey, a sought-after offensive mind … he’s a former high school coach, he’s from the state of Alabama, he’s coached at Auburn, he’s coached at Southern Miss, he’s coached at Troy — he’s been a winner everywhere he’s been. I happened to be there when he was at Southern Miss, and we had a Top 5 national offense. No other G5 program since then has done that. We had a quarterback that passed for 4,000 yards, a running back that rushed for 1,000, as well as two 1,000-yard wide receivers.”

You can listen to the full Brent Jones interview HERE.

Here is the list of Troy’s future non-conference opponents:

2019

Campbell

Southern Miss

at Akron

at Missouri

2020

North Carolina State

Arkansas-Pine Bluff

at Tennessee

at UMass

2021

Southern

Liberty

at South Carolina

at Southern Miss

2022

at Ole Miss

at Western Kentucky

2023

Western Kentucky

at Kansas State

2024

Southern Miss

at Memphis

2025

Memphis

at Clemson

2026

at Mississippi State

2027

Mississippi State

2028

Southern Miss

2029

at Southern Miss