THE CURIOUS CASE OF MARSHALL FOOTBALL: WINNING BUT WITH NO PLACE TO GO

MARSHALL'S TALENTED RB DEVON MARSHALL

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If you are Doc Holiday( Marshall Head Coach) and you need a QB to replace your all world former QB, Rakeem Cato, you simply go back to the same well that has been giving you living water for the past 2 decades, the state of Florida.

In this case you convince a 3 star,  6-6 Tampa Bay Pro Style QB named Chase Litton to make a late commitment , ( Litton committed after National Signing day last year) to your school. You then play him early in the season when the starting QB , a JMU transfer named Michael Birdsong, struggles and you start winning games again like the Marshall faithful have grown accustomed  to the last 3 years. Score another one for Holiday and his recruiting chops.

There is  now  only one problem for the 5-1 Thundering Herd and its a problem that has plagued the talented football team for several years; they continue to receive  virtually no respect on the national stage. This lack of national respect  boils down to one and only one insurmountable issue, Marshall Ad Mike Hamrick continues to struggle in creating a football schedule worthy of garnering praise and respect from the college football talking heads and the college football playoff committee.

Want to know the worst part of this for Marshall fans? This Marshall time period will be tagged as the period in which great teams played weak and uninspiring schedules. It now seems highly likely that the Doc Holiday era will be one of the brightest and best for a Thundering Herd program already  steeped in a rich and historic tradition. It will also be an era in which Marshall will almost certainly miss out on any long lasting benefits to the program.

Think about that for a moment. Marshall has seen more talent come to Huntington over the last 5 years than the program has ever had.  The Herd dominate their conference , Conference USA, and  have become a legitimate place for highly regarded transfer students to land.

All of this success however, will likely be wasted for the Herd Program.  The scheduling decisions made by the school, will ultimately sink any hopes  Holiday or  Marshall have in getting the football program into a   better conference or in receiving an  invite to a Bowl game that matters on the National Stage.

In many ways the Doc Holiday era has all of the trappings of Greek tragedy. It also has the markings of some seriously unfulfilled potential. Football programs go through cycles of success and failure. You want to capitalize when things are good so when the lean years come, you have reserves stored in the barn. The calamity  for Marshall is that the feast years under Doc Holiday will probably never be fully celebrated or appreciated on a national level like they deserve to be.

There is no question that Doc Holiday is one of a heck of a recruiter and coach. Holiday has completely overhauled Marshall into a top notch program. There is also no question that Marshall fans are some of the most loyal in all of college football. The real tragedy for the Marshall program however, is that a miscalculation in scheduling philosophy means that  Marshall  and its supporters will  be left wondering what might  have been.