Marshall University Athletics
MCGILL: Short week accelerates preparation for Herd football team
10/3/2018 11:45:00 AM | Football, Word on the Herd
Marshall hosts Middle Tennessee on Friday night
By Chuck McGill
HerdZone.com
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The final second of Marshall's win at Western Kentucky ticked off the game clock at 10:57 p.m. last Saturday night, and about an hour later the Thundering Herd players were settled on their buses while coaches piled into a van and made the 280-mile drive back to West Virginia.
First-year defensive coordinator Adam Fuller took the wheel first, and other assistants started watching film. Some looked at the WKU game first, while others shifted to this Friday's Marshall opponent, Middle Tennessee. The work was mostly individual, although the coaches recapped the WKU game verbally as Fuller and Russ Kieselhorst, the football program's director of player personnel, handled the driving.
There was no time to waste for Marshall's coaching staff, which not only had a lengthy drive after the game, but had a Saturday night game before the short turnaround for Middle Tennessee, which will face the Herd this Friday night at 7:30 at Joan C. Edwards Stadium. The van pulled into the parking lot at the Shewey Building around 4:30 a.m., Sunday morning, and the preparation did not stop.
"When you have time, you have to take advantage of it," said Tim Cramsey, Marshall's first-year offensive coordinator. "The one thing I learned as a young coach and throughout my career is sleep is important. You can't burn on both ends. You have to find time to get your sleep in, but in your waking hours, you can't be sitting around procrastinating. You have to be getting something done at all times and have your system in how to get it done."
Cramsey took a nap and continued working. Fuller immersed himself in film study.
"I went right into Middle Tennessee," Fuller said. "I didn't watch the WKU game until 4 or 5 in the morning. The game is going to happen, you just start working on it. You have an idea before the season starts of each conference opponent and things evolved for you defensively each week. Your defense has grown."
Fuller has been around the Marshall program for previous meetings with Middle Tennessee, so the opponent is not new. But, personnel changes and schemes are tweaked, so what a coach might expect from a conference opponent in the offseason can be different in the middle of the regular season when there is a five-day window to prepare.
"Their run game has changed from where it was last year, so that hit you right away," Fuller said. "You're in the van and watching and like, 'Man, this is not what I anticipated,' so we have to go in a little different direction."
Middle Tennessee is dealing with the same turnaround as Marshall, although the Blue Raiders played at home against Florida Atlantic last Saturday and will travel Thursday to the Mountain State.
"Sometimes those Friday night games, when you're at home, they don't represent the same problems when you have to travel," said Rick Stockstill, Middle Tennessee's head coach. "We're going to have to give up Thursday as a travel day. We'll still get in a little bit of work before we get on the plane. It presents a little bit of organizational issues you have to prepare for. Other than that, it gives you one less day to get over your bumps and bruises from the previous game."
Marshall players started that recovering process promptly. Treatment and time with the strength and conditioning staff on Sunday afternoon helped the team alleviate soreness from a physical game against WKU.
"We are a veteran offensive line and we know what it's like to have our bodies beat up and push through everything," said Levi Brown, a junior center and a captain for this week's game against Middle Tennessee. "We're a mature offense and a mature team. We know what it's going to take, so we had to come in (Sunday) and get in a good lift and stretch and make our bodies feel better."
The team then shifted its focus to its next opponent a day earlier than usual, but that is what has to happen when playing a game on a non-traditional day.
"A short week accelerates everything," Cramsey said. "On the way home in the van I was able to get the work done on the Western Kentucky game and then you close the book on that. Normally, you have the ability on Sunday to do that. It's a very quick turnaround."
Chuck McGill is the Assistant Athletic Director for Fan/Donor Engagement and Communications at Marshall University and a six-time winner of the National Sports Media Association West Virginia Sportswriter of the Year award. In addition to HerdZone.com's Word on the Herd, McGill is the editor of Thundering Herd Illustrated, Marshall's official athletics publication. Follow him on Twitter (@chuckmcgill) and Instagram (wordontheherd).
