Richard Crank

Marshall football (4-1, 1-0) regains its home field advantage this Saturday for the team’s homecoming game at Joan C. Edwards Stadium against conference rival Old Dominion University (2-2, 0-0).

“It’s great to be back home and have the opportunity to play a game again here,” Head coach Doc Holliday said. “It seems like forever since we’ve been home.”

The Thundering Herd captured it first conference win last week with a 14-3 victory over the Charlotte 49ers. Junior running back Keion Davis reached 1,000 career rushing yards for the Herd, and senior tight end Ryan Yurachek eclipsed 1,000 career receiving yards as well.

Homecoming is the one of the most important dates of the year for teams in the NCAA. The importance of this game has not been lost on the Marshall football team.

“Everywhere, since I started football, homecoming has always been the game where you have the most fun out of all the games,” Gant said. “It’s a serious game but it’s more fun. There is more energy in the crowd. It’s a good feeling.”

Wide receiver Tyre Brady continued his season with a pair of touchdown catches against the 49ers. The junior wide receiver said this Saturday’s homecoming game has a different energy about it.

“Always, it’s always good to build off that,” Brady said. “You can feed off that energy with Saturday’s homecoming, and we will be ready to go.”

The Thundering Herd offense has continued to improve this season. Starting quarterback Chase Litton passed for his 17th career multi-touchdown game, three out of the five games this campaign. Redshirt sophomore Levy Brown said he believes the success can be attributed to the relentless rushing attack of the Herd.

“I think it’s because we do run the ball so much that even if it’s not necessarily working, we will still go back to it and run it over and over and get a few yards now and then,” Brown mentioned. “We are a balanced team for the most part. Just throwing the ball and we do the quick game a lot which brings their linebackers downhill more and sets up more of a play action look.”

Marshall linebacker Juwon Young debuted against Charlotte last week. The 6-foot-2, 250-pound linebacker finished the contest with four tackles and assisted on a sack with fellow linebacker Artis Johnson.

“He’s just a good player,” Holliday said. “Our guys have tremendous respect for him as a player. He came in and had 32 production points his first time out, which is a lot. Not only can he play linebacker, but he can come off the edge in some pass rush, and he brings a lot of things to the table that we can do with him.”

ODU’s Steve Williams is at the helm for their offense. The freshman quarterback has gained attention for his athletic abilities on the field. However, Marshall has one of the most athletic linebacker cores in the conference and it showed against a similar quarterback in Hassan Klugh in Charlotte last weekend.

“Juwon (Young) gave us one more body that you can get in there and play, but all those guys have played well,” Holliday said. “Chase Hancock has played like an all-conference player. I think he was leading the conference in tackles last week. Artis Johnson, Omari Cobb and Frankie Hernandez are some guys who are playing well.”

The Monarch’s defense has allowed on average 234 rush yards per game to its opponents this season for an NCAA ranking of 115th in the league. Yet, Holliday said the Monarchs will be at their best for the contest this Saturday with the integration of two new defensive linemen.

“They have really good players, and it’s not just coach speak, if you turn the film on them and watch them,” Holliday said. “Supposedly they have two defensive ends coming back, so we’ll get their best shot with them coming back. They’re very athletic; they do a tremendous job technique-wise as far as rushing the passer goes. They’ve had success getting to the quarterback, and they’ve played Virginia Tech and North Carolina. They’ve played some good teams.”

Despite being 4-1 this season, Brown said he believes the team can still make little improvements, which they look forward to correcting during the game on Saturday.

“We don’t worry about style points,” Brown said. “At the same time, you see little things where it’s still just one step away, we are not really rolling how we can be. Our run game was really good this past weekend, but we were off a little bit in the pass game. We look forward to just attacking the weekend and improving on things like that.”

Home cooking has been good for the Marshall football team and its fans. Out of the last 30 home games, Marshall has been bested a mere five times. The all-time record at home for the Herd stands at 153-30 for a win percentage of 83.6 percent.

Kickoff is slated for 2:30 p.m. in Huntington this Saturday, and the game will be broadcast live on ESPN 3.

Kyle Curley can be contacted at [email protected]