Marshall University Athletics
Herd Football Hosts SMU Saturday at 4 p.m.
9/27/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 27, 2005
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -
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Marshall will look to get back on track when it plays host to SMU in an important Conference USA match-up for both schools. The contest is Marshall's first conference home game as a C-USA member and pits the Herd against SMU for the first time ever. The first 5,000 fans will receive C-USA Inaugural season t-shirts at the game and many area high school bands will be taking part in "Band Day" activities.
Both schools have lost two straight and are 0-1 in conference action. The Thundering Herd is coming off of a 23-13 loss at UCF, while SMU enters the contest off of a conference opening loss to Tulane (31-10).
Kansas State edged the Thundering Herd 21-19 in Marshall's last home game (Sept. 10) and historically speaking that fact favors the Herd. Marshall has never lost two home games in a row in Joan C. Edwards Stadium history. The last time that occured was in 1990 when the Herd dropped a 17-14 game at home to Georgia Southern on Oct. 6th, lost 38-17 at East Tennessee State on Oct. 13th, and returned home to Fairfield Stadium and lost 29-23 to UT-Chattanooga on Oct. 20th.
SMU owns a 21-10 over TCU and features an athletic quarterback in Jerad Romo. The six-foot-two senior quarterback leads the Mustangs in total offense with 129 yards per game (411 yards and two scores through the air and 105 rushing yards and a touchdown). SMU's top tacklers are Joe Sturdivant and D.D. Lee who have been credited with 37 and 36 tackles on the year, respectively.
SMU leads the league in kickoff returns with a whoping 25.2 yards per return average. The dangerous return specialist is Jessie Henderson, a 5-8 freshman who is averaging 31.4 yards per return and posted an 88 yard TD return in last weeks loss to Tulane.
QUOTES FROM Mark Snyder's WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE
"Obviously we're excited to have the opportunity to come back home and play in front of some friendly faces and get back on the winning track. We had our first road test and learned a little bit more about our team and we're definitely excited to come back home and play a pretty good SMU team - a very dangerous SMU team."
How do you get the guys back up after a tough loss? "You've just got to go back to the drawing board and that's part of the growing up process. We didn't do the things that we needed to do and until we learn those brutal facts that you can't turn the ball over and you can't have a lot of penalties on the road, we're going to struggle. We need to learn from those lessons and go on from there. If we learn those lessons, we'll be OK."
On the quarterback situation "We're going to start Bernard Morris this week and we'll see as the game goes along. We plan on going with Bernie and staying with him unless the game dictates something else."
On the quarterbacks getting rid of the ball faster "That's part of the experience process and I don't know how spring ball has been in the past, but there are going to be some scrimmages where the quarterback is going to be live for that very reason. We won't do it in pre-camp, but we will do it in spring ball. So there is a learning curve there - there's no question. You get in a comfort level when you're back at practice and people are running by you and not hitting you. The clock doesn't seem to go off in your head quite as well as it does when you're live. But that's a fence you ride and it comes with game experience. The more games you get, the more that clicker goes off that I have to get rid of the ball."
On the offensive line getting healthy "We'll be at full strength for the first time across the front. On the bright side of that, we've gained a ton of experience up front since we had to play some guys who were young and inexperienced. Now we get some of our experience back and that will help with our depth situation and I think over the next three weeks we're going to see that pay off."
On the SMU offense "To me it's the Utah offense. This is truly that type of offense that we're going to have to face. It's unusual and it's a little bit like the option. You don't see it everyday and you don't practice against it everyday. It's my experience when you go against this type of offense is you need a quarter to get used to it. It's kind of like playing the option. The defense definitely is going to be challenged this week."
On the crowd noise factor "You've seen it the last two games we've been a part of. Kansas State had to take a timeout late and it obviously was a factor late at UCF as well as some as some other penalties for procedure. That's why I preface my opening statement that it's good to be home and we need our fans to be as loud as they possibly can. It's like having that 12th man out there."
On learning from turnovers "As I look at it right now, we've had two games where we learned if you don't take care of the football, you lose. It would be nice to come out and take care of the football and get a win. Just from a teaching aspect with these young folks, that these are the things it takes to win. You cannot turn the ball over against quality opponents and win football games. It's not a crime to punt."
On SMU "They've made some mistakes - special teams and turning the ball over have hurt them. But they are a quality opponent, there's no question. They're down a little bit, just like us, and coming on the road. We need to make sure we start fast - offensively, defensively and with our crowd."
On dealing with crowd noise on the road "We practice it every Thursday. We put crowd noise over the speaker system and they just communicate. For this week it will be geared more toward our defense because I hope our fans will be as hostile as they can be when we're on defense. This past week it was for our offense. Again, it's hard to simulate it with just music playing. You've just got to come out and start fast.
"We've got to run the football. It was magnified (against UCF) because we got down and we felt like we needed to throw the football. The beautiful thing about being here at Marshall is we can move the ball in a hurry and that excites me. So it was a combination of them doing a great job stopping our run and the fact we got down. But we definitely need to start running the football better.
"Hopefully the older guys are taking care of that. We've all been there. It's like hitting a golf shot. You hit a bad one and if you dwell on it, you're not going to play very good golf. You need to move on to the next shot. We've taken a very positive approach with our guys because it is a great learning experience.
"It's an interesting dynamic when - I don't care how much of a veteran you are - when you get shell-shocked at the beginning of the game, it's going to take you awhile to recoup. I felt it was more of that than not playing hard or that kind of thing. They just came out and got after us pretty good. It took us all back a little bit because what we had preached all week didn't come to fruition. It went the other way and there was a little second guessing there and we just had to calm down and get back to what we needed to do and start having some success. And when you have some success, things start going better. But when things are going back, that's when your leaders and playmakers and enthusiasm need to come out. We need about 13 of those guys running around as opposed to one or two."
"You can't get that every week. You'd like to start fast every week. You've got to play the whole game for 60 minutes. We definitely had our chances Saturday and they gave us chances Saturday over and over, but we did not capitalize on them. We did things to shoot ourselves in the foot like a procedure where we'd go from 3rd and 3 to 3rd and 8 or 3rd and 5 to 3rd and 10. Then you start pressing and bad things happen."
On Conference USA's new bowl agreement "I think it's great. It helps your team, helps your recruiting, helps your fan base, and helps your exposure. The Liberty Bowl definitely is a bowl that has some great exposure and has had some great games played in it. It's exciting to have it."
