RE: Rice@Marshall score prediction thread
Herd fan here. I hope to offer an honest assessment of our team. Some Marshall fans may disagree with me.
We are vulnerable in the interior of our defensive line. We are undersized (I have no idea what the measurements say, but I am just using my eyes) and are built for speed. Where we struggle is a team that can run it straight at us behind a solid offensive line. Southern Miss and FAU both tried this to some degrees of success. The problem is that our offense just keeps scoring. At some point, teams have had a holding and go behind the chains or we have sent a rare run blitz and got a team behind the chains. Then an opponent punts a time or two and we just keep scoring. Eventually the deficit gets opponents out of their game plan, they start to throw, and then our defense has them because we can rush the passer and have a solid secondary.
This is not to say that we cannot stop the run necessarily. We have not felt compelled to change all that much schematically to stop the run to this point. As many posters have pointed out, we have not truly been challenged. We have not switched up to 5 man fronts or anything. We have brought run blitzes in spots, but not anything widespread for a game. Against FAU, when we were down, we narrowed our splits a bit on the defensive line and brought linebackers a bit closer to the line in the second half. That did the trick well enough, but FAU did not have a QB capable of making us pay through play action.
When we are on offense, the most underrated aspect of the team is our offensive line. I have been watching Marshall for a long time. To me, this is the best offensive line I have ever seen at Marshall. We can flat move people. And we have the backs to take advantage. We are deep at RB. We can get it done with or without Devon Johnson, though he is special. Our passing game is not as fearsome this year to my eyes. The past couple of years, we worked the middle of the field hard with Gator Hoskins and Tommy Shuler. Gator is gone. Tommy gets more coverage designed his way now. Our passing game can move the chains, but where we hurt you is by running, running, running, and then chucking a pass 35 yards down the sideline in single coverage. We may miss 3 in a row, and then we hit one for a TD. We have not really played a team yet that made up pay for missing 3 in a row. We will go spurts of a game where we are missing the deep ball and we punt a few times. No team has made up pay for this.
My understanding of your team is that you have a solid power running game. I am not sure what sort of QB you have. I am familiar with him somewhat, but am not sure if he can punish single coverage against good corners. I also understand that you are solid against the run but have a weak secondary. To me, this will be the difference in the game. Cato is still Cato and we have plenty of receivers. If you are not solid in the secondary, Marshall will back you out of the box. No matter the team, if we force the defense out of the box, I like our offensive line's chances of opening up holes.
I like Marshall in this game. I won't give a score, but I think the basic formula for the season will hold. We will struggle some in spots, but a few defensive stands here and there will take Rice out of their game. That is when we start rolling typically. Good luck. Hope some of you make the trip.
|