According to the Herald Dispatch, Pruett has made it official that Byron will not play tonight vs. Miami.

Could this be a little gamesmanship on Pruetts part??? We shall see.



Leftwich to sit out today

By ANTHONY HANSHEW - The Herald-Dispatch


Tim Johnson / The Herald-Dispatch

ESPN announced Mike Gottfried talks about how Marshall and Miami (Ohio) have two of the best quarterbacks in the country during a radio show held Monday evening at the Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon.

HUNTINGTON -- For the past 11 days, Marshall head football coach Bobby Pruett repeatedly was asked about the status of his star quarterback. On the eve of his team

Really, really unfortunate.
Once this gets around the football world today, there will be a good number of non-MAC folks who will have lost their reason to tune in.
Those would include some Heisman voters trying to get a live look at BL
Probably does that dream in. That is a shame, because there is not a more talented or entertaining offensive player in the country.
The game is just not as compelling now, except for the partisans.
If it's a gambit on the part of the Herd, it is a foolish one because of the loss of audience nationally. People in the biz would write this game off and go do something else--hockey, NBA, b-all exhibitions, etc. whatever.
Plus it's not going to affect the Hawks prep anyway.



<!--EDIT|axeme|Nov 12 2002, 08:02 AM-->

THIS is why it was dumb to let Byron come back into the Akron game. That game meant NOTHING other than some sick pride of not wanting to lose to Akron. THIS is the most important game of the year for Marshall, and their best player is potentially unavailable (I'll believe it only when the final whistle blows). The Akron game was completely irrelevant, except to put Byron in a little better Heisman standing, which doesn't get you to the MAC title game. I just don't understand what, if anything, they were thinking.

[quote="THUNDERstruck73"]By making Hill

We'll get one to stick around longer one of these days.

Isn't 7 years long enough, Odd????

:D :angel:

Pruett is the "master" of this kind of intrigue......if the Herd fall behind early I fully expect to see a limping Byron jog onto the field to the thundering ovation of the 25K souls in attendance.

P.S. I have to agree with the posters here wondering why Pruett allowed Byron to go back into the (relatively" meaningless Akron game.......oh well, what is done is "done".

The team has a medical staff that travels with the team. One of the Dr's accompanied Leftwich to a local hospital where he was x-rayed. The Doctor at the Akron hospital cleared him to go back to the game. Hell, tough guys of old used to play both sides of the ball and they would play with major pain. They didn't complain.
Nowadays if someone gets a hangnail they get pampered and are told not to play. That happens in the pro's too. I'm sure the coaching staff looked at the hospital report, along with that of the team Doctor before any decisions were made.

What makes the Akron game so meaningless? I thought one of the criteria for winning the division and conference was head to head play. What if the HERD and Miami and UCF all have the same amount of losses at the end of the year. Does that make the Akron game meaningless?

Just wondering here fellas. Someone enlighten me, please.

Herd Fan 4-Life Wrote:What makes the Akron game so meaningless? &nbsp;I thought one of the criteria for winning the division and conference was head to head play. &nbsp;What if the HERD and Miami and UCF all have the same amount of losses at the end of the year. &nbsp;Does that make the Akron game meaningless? &nbsp;

Just wondering here fellas. &nbsp;Someone enlighten me, please.

Since UCF has 2 MAC losses, that would mean Marshall would have to lose another game. Miami and UCF have not played yet so one of them will get another loss there. If UCF beats Miami then Miami would have 3 losses assuming Marshall beats them. If Miami beats UCF then UCF would have 3 losses. If Miami then losses to Marshall, they would have 2 losses but the race would be between Miami and Marshall. Since Marshall beat Miami, the Herd would have to have 3 losses in order for Miami to win it.

This all sounds confusing, but the fact is that Marshall's remaining games....including Miami....are more important that a win would have been over Akron.



<!--EDIT|rocketfootball|Nov 12 2002, 11:50 PM-->

That was my point - losing to Akron, who is already completely out of the MAC East race has no bearing - head-to-head is the first tiebreaker, and if Miami, UCF and Marshall each had only 1 loss, and Marshall beat each (which of course would be impossible, but stay with me) Marshall would win the tiebreaker. Moot point now - Miami and UCF each have 2 losses and if Marshall loses again it would still have the tiebreaker on those two.