Marshall Thundering Herd College Football Pregame Quote, 10/29/2019

Captains for this week with be Omari Cobb and Marquis Couch on defense. On offense, it will be Brenden Knox and Marquis Couch. Anytime you go on the road, you take your leadership and your toughness. This will be no different. Everybody looks at Rice’s record and thinks they aren’t a very good team, but just look at their scores. They played Southern Miss, who a lot of people think is one of the top teams in our league, and they are. (Rice) was on the two-yard line getting ready to tie it up in the fourth quarter. They took Louisiana Tech, who is leading the West, into overtime. They played Baylor, who is a top 15 team now, to a single-digit margin. Everybody they’ve played, they take it right to the wire. They’re a bunch of tough kids who play the game and they’ll fight to the end. It’s going to be a fight for us as well so we have to have a great week and get ready to go play.

On Rice:

There’s no quit in that bunch. You just turn the film on. They play. They have some really good players that play really hard and are coached really well. Against Southern Miss, they had some turnovers that hurt them as they were going in to tie the game in the fourth quarter. Against UTSA, they had turnovers at the end and they had a chance to win that game. They’re close so it will be a battle for us.

On Marshall:

That’s what teams that find a way to win do. I like this team a lot. We have a lot of character on this team with guys who find a way to go to work every day. They fight and find a way to win games. I’ll take that. They’re going to try to find a way to win it. They did Saturday. The best thing we’ve done the last three weeks is that we’re +5 in turnover margin and have had 19 sacks. We’re starting to create some turnovers. That last game, we were +3, which made a difference. If we can continue to do that and take care of the ball, we’ll be alright.

On Marshall’s close games:

We’ve had several games that have come down to the end. Our kids are playing with a lot of confidence. They can find a way to win games, regardless. We’ve had a lot of adversity the last couple of weeks and we’ve been able to overcome it. There’s adversity in every game you play. Our kids have found a way to overcome that and continued to play without looking at the scoreboard. Western Kentucky is a good football team. They had beaten Army, were undefeated in our league and had beaten UAB. Last year, it went down to the last play there (at WKU). It’s always a battle when you play those guys. Our kids understand that. We tell them all the time to keep fighting. Play every play as hard as you can play. At the end of the day, you look up and see where you are and I think you’ll like the results. Fortunately for us the last couple of weeks, that’s been the case.

On Marshall’s defense:

Koby Cumberlander is a guy who is playing really well right now. Sam Burton is playing well. Owen Porter too. We’re rotating in six defensive ends right now. Jamare Edwards on the inside is starting to come around and that’s great to see, as is (Rodney) Croom. A lot of those guys are starting to step up. Anytime those guys are starting play about 35 snaps apiece, they can play a lot harder for a lot longer.

On Rice’s defense:

They have some good players up front. They’re sound, they do what they’re coached to do. They play extremely hard and tackle well in space. They just don’t get out of position. They’re going to get lined up and make you go the distance to score points. They’re never the same two weeks in a row. They’re going to give you something different every week. They’re able to play multiple fronts and line up a lot of different ways. You have to identify where they are. You spend a lot of time in practice blocking different fronts because you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. You have to be prepared for everything.

On Marshall’s focus:

Our kids need to be focused, right now, on winning one more game. That has really been our focus the last three weeks. Find a way to be 1-0. That’s what we talked about when we played Old Dominion, same thing with FAU and now Western. If you go anywhere beyond finding a way to be 1-0, then you’re going to get beat. Our standards and expectations are a lot higher than just finding a way to get bowl-eligible. If it happens, it happens. We just have to focus on getting better this week.

On Rice’s offense:

When you look at the tape of Rice, offensively, they have a tremendous tailback (Aston Walter). He’s a good player. They have played multiple quarterbacks and each one has a different skillset.