Brandon Silvers had to prove himself to Troy head coach Neal Brown on Saturday.

The sophomore quarterback had not performed well in the first scrimmage of the season. And Brown said Silvers had to step up his game to prove he is capable of leading the Trojans’ offense.

“I thought Brandon had better energy. When he had a negative play he overcame that,” Brown said. “I thought he took what the defense gave him. One time he forced throw, but other than that I thought he was really efficient.”

Silvers wanted to start fast this week and play a more consistent game just three weeks away from opening day.

“I wanted to come out this week and start fast,” Silvers said. “I didn’t do that last week.”

“We are still working on the new offense,” Silvers said. “I thought today (Saturday) was a lot better than last week. I think we are improving every week.”

Saturday’s scrimmage wrapped up what Brown described as a good hard week of practice for the Troy Trojans.

“We had a good night,” Brown said. “The guys had really good energy, I thought I a lot of that came because we were under the lights. There was some good things and some bad like always when you scrimmage your self.”

In the first scrimmage, the defense seemed to have the upper hand over the offense. The tide began to shift towards the offense a little more Saturday night. Players like running back Jordan Chunn broke out Saturday night offensively.

“I was pleased. I thought the offense got off to a better start,” Brown said. “I thought we ran the ball well, I was real excited about Jordan Chunn. I thought he did a really good job getting in the flow of the offense and running the ball.”

The ‘fire ant’ mentality put forth by defensive coordinator Vic Koenning also was in full effect.

“I thought we answered, and we did a good job in the red zone,” Brown said. “We held the offense to field goals. I thought once again we did a nice job at short yardage situations in the coming out portion.”

Brown was impressed with the offensive lineman in the camp guys like, Antonio Garcia, Dalton Bennett and Luke Lawrence, saying that they have continued to progress during camp.

There were plenty of players that stepped up on the defensive side of the ball that really turned the head of the offensive minded head coach.

“Some of the young defensive backs really stepped up and made plays,” Brown said. “Cedarius Rookard has been coming along for about a week now, he will defiantly be a factor in the secondary. LaMarcus Farmer showed up which we needed him to do, he is a fifth year gay that transferred from UAB.”

Scrimmages usually give the younger players on the roster the ability to shine in front of the coaches and the team. The young players stood out for Troy Saturday night.

“Emmanuel Thompson has been steady throughout the entire camp, he is the guy that does the little things right,” Brown said. “Folsom is a guy that you can see is starting to show. We are always talking about length here, and he is guy that has length. He made several big plays tonight and we need him to come along.”

“We are counting on those young defensive guys. Almost every single on those guys are going to play.”

The Trojans will close out fall camp this week with their third and final intrasquad scrimmage at Veterans Memorial Stadium at 10 a.m. Saturday. Fan day will take place inside Trojan Arena from 1 to 3 p.m.