Marshall football looking for second C-USA title under Doc Holliday in 2020

As Doc Holliday enters his second decade as the head coach in Huntington, can Marshall football return to the top of Conference USA in 2020?

Entering the 2020 season, no current Conference USA head coach has more experience in the league than Marshall head man Doc Holliday. While Middle Tennessee’s Rick Stockstill and Old Dominion’s Bobby Wilder have been at their respective schools for longer, the Blue Raiders were in the Sun Belt until 2013 and the Monarchs didn’t complete their FCS transition until 2014.

As the elder statesman of the league, Holliday enters his 11th season with the Thundering Herd after winning 71 games in his first decade at the helm. Over that period, however, Holliday has only one C-USA crown to boast and one other appearance in the championship game.

Last year the Herd were on the verge of playing for the league again, but a 24-13 loss at Charlotte on the penultimate weekend of the regular season allowed FAU to sneak away with the division crown.

Holliday isn’t necessarily on the hot seat before the 2020 season commences, but there is an element of unrest starting to brew in Huntington. For a program like Marshall, where a winning pedigree extends back to the 1990s, the drought has been interminable. This campaign could go a long way toward determining whether Holliday remains the Thundering Herd head coach long term.

With the schedule still in flux as news continues to filter through about the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, let’s dive in to look at the offense and defense at Marshall before breaking down the 2020 Thundering Herd schedule and making some predictions on how the next campaign will play out.