HUNTINGTON -- Finally some family time for Marshall University football's coaching staff. Well, family time along with film study on opponents and prospective recruits.

That constitutes the current routine leading to Aug. 3 and the kickoff of preseason camp. Yes, there will be real-life vacations featuring beaches and goofy hats, but football is never far from the mind.

The point is to put in the work now, making summer down time with family and friends exactly that.

"For the most part you're working normal hours, 8 (a.m.) until, well, sometimes you're in their until after 7 (p.m.)," Thundering Herd tight ends and offensive tackles coach Phil Ratliff said. "But it's normal hours and you're able to see your kids play. You're able to see their baseball games at night and have dinner as a family. It gets back to normalcy this time of year.

"We've taken this opportunity to really familiarize ourselves with our upcoming opponents and get a little bit ahead so when we start the season we already have a lot of the work completed. We can just focus on what games they've played this upcoming season.

"We've been working really hard familiarizing ourselves with who we're playing this season."

Marshall football is less than nine weeks removed from its Aug. 30 season opener against Illinois State.

Overtime already has been logged dissecting the NCAA Division I-AA team, along with September opponents Wisconsin, Memphis, Southern Miss and West Virginia.

"We get a nice breakdown on them and do reports on them as far as their tendencies so far from what we've seen out of them," offensive line coach Mike Cummings said. "Except for Illinois State we'll have a lot more time on the opponent before we play them, but we still want to have pretty much what their base is and what they normally do and then we'll get their adjustments and anything new they put in."

Recruiting also remains at the fore during this relative time of "normalcy."

Assistant coaches spent virtually all of May narrowing recruiting focuses. Scanning film of Illinois State, Wisconsin and the rest is balanced against evaluating video of prospective recruits.

Marshall has offered scholarships to several dozen student-athletes, including several who attended Thundering Herd camps earlier this month.

"Also it gives us an opportunity to get through recruiting," said Ratliff, who primarily recruits southern Virginia and North Carolina. "We have all the information we need so when the season starts we don't have to spend time gathering information.

"I know personally, for me, it gives me the time to familiarize not only with the opponents we're playing but with the players we're recruiting."

Cummings, who also serves as the program's recruiting coordinator, chuckled when "down time" was mentioned, referencing the coming weeks. Since season's end, the full-time focus has been on returning the program to postseason play.

Members of the 2008 recruiting class have joined their teammates for summer school and voluntary workouts while coaches largely are discarding the opportunity at an 8-to-5 routine.

"A lot guys are staying around a little bit later, trying to get playbook (finalized) and cut-ups (of opponents) and so-forth," Cummings said. "We don't have the grind as we would during the season. We have to get things ready for practice and we have to get things ready for the season right now."

Head coach Mark Snyder, meanwhile, has served as the face of the program, touring the Tri-State and beyond during Big Green Coaches Caravan stops. That tour wrapped last week at The Greenbrier Resort, leaving the remainder of the offseason to family and football.

"We're looking at recruiting film probably half of the morning and the rest of the half of morning they're working on opponents," Snyder said. "They're getting their film breakdowns and getting ready for the season, getting ready for coaches' camp, getting everything set so we can get out for a couple of weeks and when we get back we're not overloaded."

Snyder's entire coaching staff recently joined for a golf outing at Esquire Golf Club before breaking huddle for family time. Nearly every coach is married with children, and welcomes the needed balance.

"I'm looking forward to it," safeties coach Shannon Morrison said. "My wife is looking forward to me being able to help take our daughter to gymnastics and soccer camps and everything else. That part I look forward to.

"I'm going to see my grandfather and my parents and everybody so when the fall comes I won't hear anybody complain, 'Oh, you need to be around more.' Guess what? I'm working."

Cummings, married and the father of two daughters, echoed his fellow assistant.

"It's better," he said. "We get to see them. The kids are awake when you get home so that's good. Mine are a little older so right now they're at the point where they want to be gone all the time.

"But it's better. You get to see your wife -- a little more normalcy. In May we spent four weeks on the road so it's nice."

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