Marshall University Athletics
MCGILL: Bowl destination offers ideal situation for Herd football
12/2/2018 9:34:00 PM | Football, Word on the Herd
Marshall will face USF on Thursday, Dec. 20 at 8 p.m.
By Chuck McGill
HerdZone.com
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – If the Marshall athletic department was in search of a one-size-fits-all gift for this holiday season, the present arrived at the Shewey Building on Sunday afternoon.
Instead of peeling back wrapping paper, athletic director Mike Hamrick answered his phone around 2 p.m. The Thundering Herd, he found out, was officially invited to the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
Hamrick happily accepted. There wasn't a Grinch to be found around the football offices once the word trickled out. Coaches were delighted. Players were pleased. The reaction on social media from fans was positive.
"TAMPA HERE WE COME" tweeted senior defensive lineman Ryan Bee, along with a trio of smiling emojis.
And why should the reaction be anything otherwise?
Marshall, with an 8-4 finish to the regular season, gets a pre-Christmas bowl matchup with the University of South Florida, a 7-5 team from the American Athletic Conference. The game will be played at the Bulls' home venue, Raymond James Stadium, on Thursday, Dec. 20 at 8 p.m. The Marshall-USF meeting, a first for the programs, will be the only college football game of the day, and an ESPN national broadcast awaits.
It gets better.
The game will feature strong ties between the respective coaching staffs. Marshall coach Doc Holliday, who will put his unblemished 5-0 record on the line in three weeks, used to coach with USF head coach Charlie Strong at the University of Florida. One of Strong's assistants is Damon Cogdell, who played for Holliday in college. Sean Cronin, another assistant, spent three stints at Marshall – including two under Holliday – before heading to Tampa.
The game will be played in front of family and friends and, hopefully, a swath of Kelly green-clad Herd fans. Surely, Marshall football legend Vinny Curry, who plays his home National Football League games at Raymond James Stadium with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will be around that week.
There is even a brotherly connection for this bowl. Matthew Beardall, Marshall's long snapper, and Andrew Beardall, a long snapper for USF, are brothers who grew up together in Merritt Island, Florida, about a two-hour drive from the site of the game. Marshall's Beardall tweeted that he was "so pumped" for the matchup, and renamed the game the Beardall Bowl. He shared a photo of he and his brother on Instagram.
Don't tell me these games are meaningless.
Beyond the sentiment, there's the opportunity of the matchup. USF struggled down the stretch, but started the season with seven consecutive victories and peaked at No. 21 in the national polls. The Bulls notched a pair of wins against Power 5 teams – against Georgia Tech and at Illinois.
Hamrick, Holliday and the Herd also have a strong bowl and Florida history. Marshall has won all six bowl appearances since Hamrick took over as the AD before the 2009 season. Holliday is 5-for-5, including three bowl wins in the Sunshine State. Holliday has won eight of his last 10 meetings inside the state of Florida, a place that has been a recruiting pipeline for him, including a Nov. 24 victory at FIU to wrap up Conference USA play.
Now, about that pipeline. There are 30 Floridians on Marshall's roster. There are prospective recruits there. Families of current players will have a short trip to watch the Herd play one more time.
It is an ideal situation that played out Sunday for a program that has won 11 of 13 bowl appearances since leaving what was then Division I-AA for FBS competition. No team in college football – with at least five appearances – has a better bowl winning percentage than Marshall's .846. By the time the game kicks off at the 65,890-seat stadium known in the Tampa area as "Ray Jay," Marshall will be three days shy of the 14th anniversary of the last time the program lost a bowl game.
Extending that winning tradition is next on the wish list.
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).
