West Virginia vs Marshall Football Preview

In a fiercely-contested in-state rivalry, the pain of an excruciating defeat lingers for a long time. It’s not as easy to sustain the memory of a very fortuitous escape. This is the tricky mental challenge facing the West Virginia Mountaineers this Sunday when they face the Marshall Thundering Herd in an annual gridiron donnybrook.

Animosity between WVU and Marshall runs deep. West Virginia is the big-boy school, while Marshall is the downmarket university that constantly claws at the Mountaineers with rabid intensity. Tensions run high and passions overflow when these teams meet for state bragging rights, and last year, it appeared that Marshall was going to pull off a major-league upset.

Early in the fourth quarter, the Thundering Herd – playing a Friday night game on their home campus – had attained a 21-6 lead, the product of maniacal intensity and a considerable amount of help from a sloppy WVU offense (an offense that never really cleaned up its act over the remainder of the 2010 season). Following a Mountaineer turnover, Marshall moved the ball inside the West Virginia 10-yard line and was about to register a knockout punch. Even a field goal would have been a death blow for the Mountaineers because a three-point tally would have pushed Marshall’s lead from two possessions (15 points) to three (18 points).

Then, everything unraveled for a Marshall team that had dominated its bigger, brawnier, and more credentialed opponent for 50 minutes.

It all started with a fumble inside the West Virginia 5. Then the Mountaineers raced downfield to score one of the two touchdowns it needed. Marshall maintained a 21-13 lead over the next few minutes, and even when West Virginia took over near its own goal line with roughly three minutes left, the Thundering Herd were in good shape. Everyone in the stadium in Huntington, West Virginia, knew that the Mountaineers would need a length-of-the-field touchdown drive plus a 2-point conversion just to send the game into overtime.

That’s precisely what WVU produced.

Inconsistent quarterback Geno Smith found enough focus to lead the Mountaineer offense down the field. A touchdown and a two-pointer in the final half-minute stunned the Herd and created a 21-21 tie. When in overtime, Marshall’s kicker missed, enabling West Virginia to sew up a 24-21 Houdini, the mother of all improbable getaways. It’s this game which forms the emotional backdrop to the 2011 season opener. Marshall will come with double the fury, and a new-look West Virginia team will need to stand tall… at least if it wants to avoid another 15-point fourth-quarter deficit.

Exactly how is this a “new-look” West Virginia crew? In the offseason, athletic director Oliver Luck hired the nation’s hottest and most sought after offensive mind to be its next head coach. Only this time, it awkwardly left the current head coach (Bill Stewart) in charge for one more season. At least, that was the plan.

Now, the environment in Morgantown is even more unsettled, even though one man will enjoy complete control of this program.  

This season was supposed to be a transition year in which head coach Bill Stewart stayed in charge of the program while Dana Holgorsen served as the team’s offensive coordinator and head coach in waiting. Stewart was going to be a steward and caretaker of the program while Holgorsen, a veteran of the Big 12 and Conference USA, got acclimated to his new surroundings. Given the talent that is returning, the pieces are all in place for West Virginia to once again have one of the nation’s premier offenses and regain its place among the elite teams in the Big East. However, the backstage dramas enveloping Stewart and Holgorsen revealed a soap opera in which Stewart actively sought to undercut Holgorsen’s role. It’s true that Holgorsen has embarrassed himself in separate incidents relating to excessive alcohol consumption, but Stewart’s meddling behind the scenes marked an even greater threat to the program. Stewart was axed, leaving Holgorsen as the head coach for this year, one year earlier than Luck ever planned.

How will West Virginia respond to its new leader in a rivalry game? How will the Mountaineers perform against a team they’re expected to beat? Holgorsen won’t win too much acclaim in victory, but his position of authority will immediately be questioned if WVU loses. We’ll see if this year’s Marshall- West Virginia came can even come close to matching the drama of last season’s high-wire act.

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By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer