Soon after Nyck Young made the decision to come to Troy, his phone stopped receiving calls and texts from numbers with a 205 area code.

Just a few years ago, Young, a transfer from Victor Valley College in California, singed his name on the dotted line of a National Letter of Intent for UAB.

Now, Young is entering game prep week against his former teammates.

“It’ll be a lot of emotions definitely. It’ll be a lot of emotions, you know (seeing) the guys you went to practice with, you worked out with,” Young said. “That’s a part of it. You come across things like that sometimes. You’ve just got to play hard.”

His former teammates are now on the opposite side of the battlefield.

Young said his UAB friends kept in touch for a while, but it all stopped once he signed with the Trojans.

“I Haven’t talked to them in a couple of months,” Young said. “I talked to them a lot when I left and was in junior college, but when they found out I was coming here, that kinda turned into a war a little bit.”

Young has made plays in fall camp, and looks to be a valuable piece of the Troy passing game this fall. At Victor Valley, he caught 36 passes for 774 yards and seven touchdowns.

He feels the Troy receiving corps is one of the best in the nation.

“It’s great because a lot of us can play. You know Chandler and Bryan, they have a lot of experience and can make a lot of plays. Jarvis Bentley, B.J. Chitty, myself … even the freshman Emanuel Thompson will be really good for us in the future. A lot of great guys. I don’t think too many teams can line up eight, nine guys and not miss a step.”

The soft-spoken junior receiver said the two fan bases treat the in-state rivalry differently.

Blazer fans take it more seriously, while he feels Troy folks are all about business.

“Probably UAB because they try to feed off of (it.) They’re in a big city, so there’s a lot more media coverage, so there’s more hype. Troy has more tradition and history, so there’s nothing really for them to talk about – just go ahead and get it done.”