Marshall Football: Can Thundering Herd return to C-USA title game?

Last year was a tale of two seasons for Marshall football. The Thundering Herd started out great, winning their first seven games, including one over App State, and freshman quarterback Grant Wells looked like one of the best young quarterbacks in the nation.

Marshall was ranked heading into a game against Rice, but that’s where things went south. The Owls not only upset Marshall, but they shut them out and Wells had his worst game of the season.

That loss to Rice started a three-game losing streak that culminated in long-time head coach Doc Holliday (great name by the way) being let go.

After letting Holliday go, the Thundering Herd turned to Alabama assistant head coach and running backs coach Charles Huff to be the new head coach. He has been an excellent coach for the Crimson Tide and is known to be a great recruiter and he is going to have a lot of talent coming back to Huntington.

There are going to be a lot of eyes on how Huff does this season because Holliday was a very good and consistent football coach for many years for Marshall and the decision to let him go was surprising. It could work out, but that level of success is not going to be easy to replicate.

The things that will make Huff’s first season an easy transition is the fact that Wells is back and a year older and Marshall returns seven starters from one of the nation’s best defenses. A manageable schedule will help Marshall’s path to make their return to the C-USA title game.