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MARSHALL SPORTS
Chuck Landon: Game was a mixture of good, bad and huh?
Sometimes it was good.
Sometimes it was bad.
Sometimes it was baffling.
There isn't any one category that really fits Marshall's season-opening 35-10 win over Illinois State Saturday before 25,661 fans at Edwards Stadium.
Instead, it was all about the good, the bad and the huh?
First, the good.
- Marshall won. After losing the last two season-openers that was a very welcome sight.
- Marshall's special teams. They won this game for the Herd. It's that simple.
- The lack of penalties.
- The defensive halftime adjustments.
- The guts to throw the bomb with only 35 seconds remaining in the first half, instead of being conservative, taking a knee and going into the locker room with a 7-7 tie at halftime.
- The habitually slow-starting Herd took a while to get going again.
- Star tight end Cody Slate injured his right knee on the seventh play of the second half and never returned. He watched the rest of the second half wearing street clothes.
- Illinois State ran a jaw-dropping 83 offensive plays to only 54 for Marshall.
- With only about four minutes remaining, Marshall unveiled the shovel pass it has been working on all during training camp.
- After spending all training camp bally-hooing it's deep stable of running backs, Darius Marshall got 20 of the 25 carries.
- A laser-pass by Cann hit senior wideout Emmanuel Spann on the fly right in the face mask. It was the second-straight season Spann has gotten doinked.
"This is the way it's supposed to be," said Marshall head coach Mark Snyder. "You start the season at home, you win and you gain a little confidence."
After being flagged a whopping 83 times for 695 yards last season, the Herd was penalized just once for 10 yards against Illinois State.
Marshall was moving around so much with its new, ultra-aggressive defensive scheme in the first half, the Herd actually kept over-running Illinois State's slew of screen passes.
So, defensive coordinator Rick Minter simply reverted back to basics at halftime. The Herd spent the second half in its base defense, playing good, old-fashioned, hard-nosed football.
"Oh, no, we've got a new offensive coordinator," said senior wide receiver Darius Passmore, who caught the 88-yard touchdown bomb from quarterback Mark Cann to give the Herd a lead it never lost.
"He (John Shannon) loves to be in attack mode. He's all about attacking."
Now, the bad.
Illinois State ran 21 plays to only 10 by Marshall in the first quarter. That included a mind-numbing 17-play, 76-yard touchdown drive that ate up an amazing 9:36 off the clock.
"The main problem," said strong-side linebacker Corey Hart, "was we hadn't hit hardly at all in camp. We had to get a feel for wrapping up and tackling again and get a feel for the speed of the game."
That led to Illinois State dominating the time of possession with 39 minutes to only 21 for Marshall. The Herd simply can't allow a lower division team to control the football to that extent.
And, finally, the huh?
Why?
Huh?
"I was coming out of my break and it hit me," said Spann. "At least I got it out of the way early. It won't happen again."
The bottom line is Marshall's good, bad and huh? performance was solid. Good? No. Solid? Yes.
But was it a good enough performance to beat Memphis in two weeks?
No.
Chuck Landon is a sports columnist for The Herald-Dispatch. Call him at 526-2827. E-mail him at clandon@herald-dispatch.com.
