Marshall Thundering Herd Head coach: Doc Holliday (70-46, 10th year) 2018 record and S&P+ ranking: 9-4 (73rd) Projected 2019 record and S&P+ ranking: 8-4 (77th) Five key points: With known play-makers and potential depth issues, Holliday’s 10th Herd team will have both a high ceiling and low floor. QB injuries led to the discovery of a nice run game, and RBs Tyler King and Branden Knox could continue that progress. QB Isaiah Green loses star WR Tyre Brady but brings back a corps that combines efficiency seniors with high-upside youth. The defense was dynamite last year but must replace half the front seven and its coordinator. The secondary should be great, though. S&P+ projects half of MU’s conference games within seven points. C-USA is a logjam, but close wins could mean a conference title.

Bill C’s annual preview series of every FBS team in college football continues. Catch up here!

“I tend to enjoy college football a lot more when Marshall’s good and Marshall fans are particularly chesty.”

We all have our own preferences for how the college football universe should look and feel, and I expressed one of mine in last year’s Marshall preview. I enjoy it when one of the sport’s great chip-on-shoulder programs is handing out comeuppance, and while 2018 wasn’t the greatest year for such a thing, we caught some glimpses.

We got a sustained glimpse in the Gasparilla Bowl. What might have been the best Marshall defense since 1999 sacked hometown USF’s Blake Barnett four times; forced six punts, a turnover, and a turnover on downs; and ceded the floor to a Herd offense looking better than it had all year. Freshman quarterback Isaiah Green went 17-for-25, backs Keion Davis and Brenden Knox rushed for 187 yards, and Marshall bolted to a 28-7 first-half lead before cruising, 38-20.

Marshall’s ninth win announced that the Thundering Herd had completed their rebound after a nasty 2016 stumble.

Doc Holliday has now made it nearly a decade in Huntington. Context-free, that’s a remarkable achievement in today’s FBS landscape — only 14 head coaches have served in their current position longer. But the 61-year-old former WVU linebacker, once Urban Meyer’s ace recruiter at Florida, has done so despite a high-wire act. In order to maximize physical potential, he constantly mixes transfers, JUCOs, prep schoolers, second-chancers, greyshirts, blueshirts, and whateverothercolorshirts.

Roster balance sometimes falls out of whack, and the Herd sometimes careen toward youth in certain units. They went from 24th in Def. S&P+ in 2015, to 104th in 2016 and back to 22nd by 2018. They were 99th in Off. S&P+ in 2011, climbed to 20th in 2014, then slowly slid back to 116th by 2017.

Despite the ups and downs, the Herd have almost always remained competitive. They hovered around .500 for his first few seasons, just as they had in the final seasons of his predecessor, Mark Snyder. They broke through with a spectacular 33-8 run from 2013-15, suffered an equally spectacular 3-9 reset in 2016, then started climbing again. The defense found major traction, and an offensive rebuild at least took root last fall.

Programs like FAU, FIU, and maybe Southern Miss or North Texas might have something to say, but Marshall might have the best combination of experience and potential in Conference USA this fall.

I thought the Herd might be capable of 10 wins last fall and they came up just short, but they’ll get another shot at that bar. They return Green, their two most effective runners, most of their offensive line, and most of an exciting secondary. They get FIU and Louisiana Tech at home, and while they have to travel to FAU, they’ve played as well as anyone against Lane Kiffin’s Owls over the last two years.

There are question marks, of course. Holliday has yet to finalize his staff after losing defensive coordinator Adam Fuller to Memphis, and an occasionally dominant front six/seven has known play-makers but got hit pretty hard by attrition. Plus, an offense that wasn’t quite explosive enough must now replace its two most explosive receivers in Tyre Brady and Marcel Williams.

The cocktail of talent is volatile, and there’s no guarantee that Marshall will be able to follow up on last year’s gains. But this team has Marshall-level potential and a schedule that features shots at strong mid-major programs (Boise State, Ohio, Cincinnati) before a run at the title in what might be FBS’ most balanced conference.

Related The 2018 advanced college football stats glossary

Offense

To turn his offense back around, Holliday brought pass-happy coordinator Tim Cramsey to Huntington a year ago. Marshall is the sixth school to employ Cramsey as its OC in this decade, and for the first time since 2015, it appears he’ll be at the same school for a second year in a row.

A short-term presence or not, he engineered at least a little improvement in 2018. And it might have been more had Green remained healthy. See if you can spot where he may have gotten hurt:

Marshall QBs, first 4 games (3-1) : 55 percent completion rate, 12.7 yards per completion, 123.1 passer rating

: 55 percent completion rate, 12.7 yards per completion, 123.1 passer rating Marshall QBs, next 4 games (2-2) : 52 percent completion rate, 10.4 yards per completion, 106.0 passer rating

: 52 percent completion rate, 10.4 yards per completion, 106.0 passer rating Marshall QBs, last 5 games (4-1): 59 percent completion rate, 13.4 yards per completion, 135.0 passer rating

Green was never dominant, but when he missed four games with a knee injury in the middle of the season, Wagner transfer Alex Thomson, an in-demand QB last offseason, subbed in and struggled. The Herd sank from the mid-70s in Off. S&P+ in late-September to the mid-110s by early-November.

It was a period of discovery, however. With the passing game struggling, Cramsey leaned more heavily on the run game, and in fits and starts, it responded. Tyler King and Anthony Anderson rushed 36 times for 286 yards against ODU, then King and Davis rushed 31 times for 185 against FAU. King injured his leg and missed the last five games, so Knox carried the load (22 for 116) in a win over Charlotte, and then Knox and Anderson combined for 145 yards in a tight win over FIU.

Cramsey leaned on a four-headed running back group, which responded pretty well. Davis and Anderson are now gone, but King and Knox, the two most successful, return for their junior and sophomores seasons, respectively.

They get most of their line back, too. All-conference center Levi Brown and junior tackles Tarik Adams and Will Ulmer have combined for 85 career starts, while three others have starting experience. Plus, enormous incoming JUCO transfer Josh Ball is a former blue-chipper who started nine games at Florida State in 2017 before a suspension for dating violence. He will get a second chance in Huntington.

It’s in Cramsey’s DNA to want to throw the ball, and it’s unclear how well Marshall will do it. Green had promising moments for a freshman, but a lot of those moments were due to Tyre Brady.

The former Miami receiver caught 71 balls for 1,002 yards and averaged nearly 16 yards per catch when Green was healthy. Without Brady and slot man Marcel Williams, Marshall needs a new center of gravity in the receiving corps.

There’s still potential, and Z receiver Obi Obialo is a good starting point. He was easily the most efficient option, though he averaged just 12 yards per catch, and tight end Armani Levias was another “explosive when Green was healthy” guy — he averaged 9.6 yards per catch in those middle four games and 14.7 otherwise.

Senior Artie Henry could be ready for a starring role in the slot, but it’s unclear who might step up as the new X receiver. Junior Willie Johnson? Sophomore Naquan Renalds? A former three-star prospect like junior Jeremiah Maddox or redshirt freshman Talik Keaton?

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Defense

Adam Fuller’s lone season as coordinator could barely have gone better. A longtime Holliday assistant, he got promoted to the role last year when Chuck Heater left to become Maryland’s safeties coach.

Fuller knew the personnel and the Holliday culture and thrived with a defense that was both aggressive (17th in marginal efficiency) and capable of solid big-play prevention (37th in marginal explosiveness).

The Herd were rather all-or-nothing on blitz downs — 12th in sack rate, 28th in success rate, 103rd in big-play rate — but if they were able to top you athletically, you were going to struggle. ACC teams NC State and Virginia Tech averaged 39 points per game and 6.8 yards per play against MU: everyone else: 18.7 and 4.5, respectively.

We’ll see what happens now that Holliday’s going outside of the family. He has brought in former Charlotte head coach Brad Lambert as a “volunteer defensive assistant” at the moment, and it appears he will become coordinator, with line coach J.C. Price as co-coordinator, once Lambert’s buyout is cleared up. Charlotte and Marshall had two of the three best run defenses in the conference (along with Southern Miss’), so maybe Lambert and Holliday will find some things in common.

Depth does take a hit in 2019, as Marshall must replace three of last year’s top six linemen and four of five linebackers. The Herd should have one of the quickest interior lines in the country — nose tackle Channing Hames and end/tackle Ty Tyler combined for 16.5 sacks and six non-sack tackles for loss. Plus, there are weapons on the edge in senior linebacker Omari Cobb (6.5 TFLs, 3.5 sacks), end Marquis Couch (8.5, 2.5), and perhaps Virginia Tech transfer Tavante Beckett.

Still, depth is perilous. Some combination of JUCO transfers (tackle Esaias Carpenter, end TJ Johnson) and recent star recruits (redshirt freshmen Darius Hodge and Arak McDuffie, incoming freshmen Dante Walker and DeShawn Page, etc.) will be asked to take on large roles if there are any injuries ... and there are always injuries.

If the front holds up, though, the back should thrive. Star safety Malik Gant declared for the NFL draft, but everyone else in the secondary is back, from corners Chris Jackson and Kereon Merrell (23 combined passes defensed) to safeties Nazeeh Johnson and Brandon Drayton. Plus, corner Jaylon McClain-Sapp appeared well on his way to a massive year — he had three passes defensed and a TFL in three games — before missing most of the season with injury.

Losing Fuller, Gant, and front-seven depth is reason for concern, but Marshall returns as many known play-makers as anyone in the conference.

Special Teams

Marshall loses its strongest special teams weapons and returns its weakest. The Herd were top-20 in both punt and kick return efficiency, but Marcel Williams (PR) and Keion Davis (KR) both depart.

Kicking dragged the Herd down to 88th in Special Teams S&P+. Senior-to-be Justin Rohrwasser was limited in range (14-for-16 on FGs under 40, 1-for-5 beyond), which held the Herd back in both place-kicking and kickoffs. Punter Robert Lefevre (59th in punt efficiency) is solid, though one hopes Marshall is a bit less reliant on its punter this fall.

2019 outlook

Holliday’s 10th Marshall team will bear plenty of similarities to recent teams.

Proven play-makers: Marshall has a ton of them, from Jackson and Merrell to Hames and Tyler to King and Knox.

Massive athletic potential: Beyond the knowns, the Herd could also boast more than 20 three-star true and redshirt freshmen.

Depth issues: Marshall could be perilously young at WR, DE, DT, or LB with just a couple of injuries.

Reliance on youth: Green is still a sophomore, after all.

Marshall will be as interesting as ever in 2019. That might excite me personally, but it makes the Herd awfully hard to project. S&P+ projects them as the No. 2 overall team in the C-USA, just ahead of FAU, North Texas, Louisiana Tech, and FIU and just behind Southern Miss.

S&P+ projects four of Marshall’s conference games (plus two non-cons) to finish within a touchdown. The Thundering Herd have as good a chance as anyone in a logjam of a race, but they are only a couple of injuries or bad breaks from a mid-tier finish. Buckle up, I guess.

Team preview stats

All 2019 preview data to date.