Marshall was a happy last-minute surprise for the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl last weekend. Bowl leadership said the Thundering Herd wasn’t on their radar until the closing shuffle dominated by ESPN-brokered pairings elsewhere.
This weekend, Marshall surprised the college football world – except for those who had been paying attention since.
Months of a high-stakes game of Chicken in Huntington, W.V., ultimately resulted in the Thundering Herd retreating from Army – specifically, withdrawing from what briefly seemed a very attractive matchup of conference champions Dec. 28 in the local bowl’s 48th edition.
The decision, reached Friday and confirmed Saturday morning, isn’t totally terrible for the I-Bowl. Louisiana Tech, despite a losing record, should sell more tickets and while hotels and restaurants won’t get a boost from West Virginians coming to town, it’s not as if Marshall fans were buying 50 Cent’s “all roads lead to Shreveport” mantra.
Coach Charles Huff’s ouster at Marshall – and that’s what it was, despite the fact he’s now in charge at Southern Mississippi – triggered the mess. Discarding Huff soured most of the Herd’s front-line players, 36 total, 17 on their two-deep, including all three quarterbacks. They appeared in the transfer portal like drones over New Jersey.
Some Herd standouts are probably headed to Hattiesburg, along with several assistant coaches. Marshall athletic director Christian Spears is very proud of how he played the Huff situation, and that he had his new coach, West Virginia native and North Carolina State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, announced 17 minutes after USM confirmed hiring Huff in a deal struck days earlier.
But in this new player-centric age, Spears blundered badly, if he bothered to mull how dumping Huff would impact his current roster or sully the program’s profile. Clearly, he didn’t care much about the roster or the I-Bowl, and as things unraveled Friday, that left Shreveport-Bossier’s best billboard in salvage status.
It was no surprise to anyone tuned in that Marshall had a coaching change despite the Herd recovering from a 3-3 start and winning seven in a row to finish 10-3 with the Sun Belt championship.
This was the last of a four-year contract with Huff, hired a year before Spears arrived in charge at Marshall. Huff was a hot commodity in 2022 after Marshall’s 9-4 season included an upset at Notre Dame, but no contract extension resulted, and a 6-7 season last year lowered Huff’s Herd stock.
The sides found no common ground before or during this season, and Huff hustled off to Hattiesburg with a sweet new deal to revive the Golden Eagles, who were winless in the Sun Belt.
Days after Spears called his coaching change a “win-win-win deal,” he left the Independence Bowl in a lurch. That possibility began to fester not long after last Sunday’s selection announcement, so suddenly-wary bowl leaders circled the wagons tightly and began scouring the landscape.
No 6-6 bowl-eligible options were left, sending the search to fill the void into the list of five-win teams whose Academic Progress Rate four-year averages met the NCAA bowl standard. Calls were made, scenarios floated, but pickings were slim.
It’s plausible, maybe even likely, that Tech and ULM (also 5-7) were the I-Bowl’s only options. The Warhawks have their own portal struggles, most prominently star running back Ahmad Hardy, who ranked 10th nationally in rushing yards in his freshman season, now bound for Oregon for a rumored $800,000 NIL deal. Besides, as Tech fans were delighted to point out, ULM ranked lower in the academic pecking order.
Tech’s class schedule, based on the uncommon quarter system, was salvation. Most of the Bulldogs are in the second week of the winter quarter and those who are not in the portal and are willing can practice and play on ESPN in two weeks.
But those few hours twisting in the social media breeze Saturday were awkward, although not self-inflicted, for the I-Bowl. The day dimmed even more when Army was whipped by Navy, with bowl chairperson Claire Rebouche there in D.C. but unable to congratulate the bummed-out Black Knights.
Coach Jeff Monken – who committed his own gaffe this week by wondering aloud if Navy still had a football program, a statement that the Midshipmen repeatedly referenced postgame – will summon a cheerful face when he brings his team to town, but not until then.
“It’s been a good season,’’ he said, “(but) when you lose this game, there’s nothing great, tremendous, outstanding or stupendous about it. It frankly makes the season a bit of a disappointment – that’s just the truth of this game and the fact of how big this rivalry is. To lose this game sours the season.’’
To lose Marshall lowers, at least for the moment, the Independence Bowl glow. But at least no Army players are in the portal. At West Point, they call that going AWOL.
Tech may not deserve a bowl game, but it deserves a measure of gratitude for saving this one.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com