Marshall University Athletics
Marshall to Battle Tennessee on National Television Saturday
9/1/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Marshall to Battle Tennessee on National Television Saturday
9/1/2003
The Thundering Herd will clash with one of the nation?s most storied college football programs when it battles the Volunteers of the University of Tennessee Saturday in front of a 100,000+ crowd in UT's Neyland Stadium and a national television audience on ESPN2.
Jeff Hullinger will handle the play by play, Andre Ware will serve as color analyst, and Brad Wilson will cover the sidelines for the broadcast.
The contest will be the first-ever meeting between the two schools and Marshall?s fourth game with a Southeastern Conference foe since moving to the Division 1-A ranks in 1997. Since 1997, the Thundering Herd is 1-2 against SEC opponents. MU boasts a 24-21 win at South Carolina (1998) and has recorded losses to Mississippi (31-34 in the 1997 Motor City Bowl) and at Florida (49-14 in 2001). Marshall is 1-11 all-time against SEC schools.
The game will mark only the second time ever that Tennessee has played a Mid-American Conference school in football. The Vols lone meeting with MAC team came in 1989 and ended in a 52-9 UT win over Akron in Knoxville.
The announced attendance will be the largest crowd ever to watch Marshall play football. The previous mark was the 85,445 who watched then #1 ranked Florida top the Herd at ?The Swamp? in Gainesville in 2001.
The game pits two of the nation?s premier coaches against one another. In fact, the two winningest active football coaches by winning percentage in all of Division 1-A football. Marshall?s Bob Pruett heads the list with a record of 81-13 (.862) and UT?s Phillip Fulmer is second with a record of 104-25 (.806).
