Marshall University Athletics
MCGILL: Hype builds around Herd for 2019 title run
7/19/2019 10:51:00 AM | Football, Big Green Scholarship Foundation, Word on the Herd
By Chuck McGill
HerdZone.com
There's a lot of reasons why the Marshall football program is trendy pick to win the Conference USA East Division title and compete for a league championship this season.
For one, the Thundering Herd – which opens the season in 43 days at home against VMI on Aug. 31 – has been trending upward in wins. Marshall, which has won a Conference USA-best 43 games since 2014, finished last season 9-4, increasing its overall win total for the second consecutive season. The Herd has won a nation-leading seven consecutive bowl games, including 6-0 under 10th-year head coach Doc Holliday.
But the nationwide prognosticators – and now those who voted in the C-USA preseason poll – have recognized the amount of talent returning for Marshall in 2019. Along the offensive line, four starters return. Overall, the offensive line has 103 combined starts returning. Quarterback Isaiah Green, the C-USA Co-Freshman of the Year last season, set a MU school record for average passing yards per game last season, and ranked second nationally among FBS freshman QBs. The team's top two rushers return, and while the defense lost key pieces on all three levels, first-year defensive coordinator Brad Lambert has plenty of talent left in the cupboard.
Marshall placed four players on the preseason all-conference team. Worried about leadership? Don't be. All four of those players honored are rising seniors.
It is no surprise, then, that preseason publications like Lindy's and Athlon put Marshall atop the conference's East Division. The league's media followed, and when Conference USA released its annual preseason poll Tuesday, the Herd was predicted to finish ahead of Florida International and Florida Atlantic for a berth into the conference championship game.
These are expectations that are welcomed in Huntington. Holliday, though, has been working overtime to guard against complacency as preseason camp looms in a few weeks. He wants the same humble, hungry team that has spent the last two seasons fighting and clawing to push the Herd back to the top of Conference USA.
"We have a lot of really good kids and really great players," Holliday said Thursday morning at the C-USA Football Kickoff in Frisco, Texas. "I tell our kids all of the time: Potential gets you beat; production (is what) wins games.
"All these expectations and everything that's out there – that's all great. But we got to go to work every day and turn all that potential into production. If we do that, we've got a chance."
Brett Vito, the North Texas beat writer for the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle, took a look at the Herd in anticipation of a potential championship clash this season. Vito tweeted that Marshall "has been on the rise since a tough 2016 season and appears to have what it takes to complete its climb back to the top." Vito said that Marshall, which had senior offensive lineman Levi Brown and senior defensive back Chris Jackson as representatives at the Football Kickoff, was one of the main attractions for the event in nearby Frisco.
That is great publicity for Holliday and the Herd. Not only does Marshall have the nation's longest bowl winning streak, but also the best all-time bowl winning percentage. In the last six seasons, the Herd has won five bowl games. Only three other teams can claim that, and two are the Clemson Tigers and the Wisconsin Badgers. In the offseason, C-USA came to a broadcast agreement with the NFL Network, which certainly will give the league and its team benefits in terms of exposure. Marshall, however, will not appear on the network in year one of the deal because all of its games had already been claimed when an agreement was reached.
Those are examples of why Vito called Marshall "one of C-USA's storied programs."
Now, when preseason camp opens in August and the regular season gets underway at the end of that month, Holliday and the Herd will try to live up to those expectations and bring the championship trophy back to Huntington.
"This can be one of our better teams," Holliday told the Denton Record-Chronicle. "We have to go out and win games."
Chuck McGill is the Assistant Athletic Director for Fan/Donor Engagement and Communications at Marshall University and a seven-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).
