[nickeydyme]

I like Marshall to cover -10.5 against the Rehawks for the following reasons.

Please input anything on either team, we are all here to win and help.

Here is the preseason breakdown of each Marshall is averaging a preseason rank around 67 and Miami Oh is around 106. Marshall returns 8 starters on offense that accounts for 82% of ly's 3 ranked pass o and 59th rank rush o, including their qb, rb, and top wr. miami Oh returns 7 starters on O but only their rb from ly and they account for only 40% of ly's 31st pass o and 122nd rush o. Their stud Qb Dysert has finally graduated and their best player on the team, wr Nick Harwell got dimsissed in March and transferred to Kansas.

Marshall's D ly was terrible to be polite, ranking 106th against rush and 88th against pass, the good news is 7 of those starters are back and have a new D coordinator. Miami Oh D was not much better ranking 124th against rush and 50th against pass and return 6 starters.

Marshall went 3-3 at home ly main due to their garbage D because they averaged 33 points a game at home but gave up 36 points a game at home on average. Conversely, Miami OH went 1-6 on road ly and averaged 20 points but their defense gave up 41 points a game on road!

No reason to think Marshall offense wont explode opening night returning Kato who threw for over 4k yards and 37tds as a sophomore. his top target is back in Shuler a junior had 110 catches over 1k yards, they do lose their 2&3 recievers but they have enough guys back with playing experience to make the transition imo. including two 4star freshman and penn state transfer, Kersey. thier backfield returns their top 3 rb's from ly who combined for almost 1600 yards. And that was all as freshman, i expect this trio to be even better this year. Marshall's o-line is very experienced returning 4 starters and 4 backups who played/started ly.

The Defense is not going to be Alabama this year but i can only hope that with all those starters coming back and a new D coordinator, Heater from Temple that these guys will have learned a little from their mistakes, they dont need to be good just average because the Marshall O will score 30 plus every game.

Miami Oh most likely starting QB will be Boucher Sr with only 13 attempts ly. Always tough replacing a school's big time QB like Dysert was but this will be even harder without Harwell. Him and cruse the #2 option at wr are gone, leaving that position thin. The rb's return but combined those 2 rushed for only 595 yards on 157 carries, yikes! Miami o-line only returns 2 starters as well.

Like Marshall their D returns enough pieces that they just need to be average to stay in games. But unlike Marshall i see this offense regressing with no playmakers and experience at QB.

Marshall is one of Phil Steele's sleeper teams and i agree that either them or East Carolina win that division. Miami Oh could end up being a decent team in the Mac but not week 1.

Final Score Marshall 38 Miami Oh 24

[WorkHorse]

Welcome to the forum Nickey....glad to have you Bud.

Agree Marshall has some potent offensive players: QB Rakeem Cato, WR Justin Hardy, WR Tommy Shuler highlight what should be a high scoring offense. Getting some play out of the defense is were the concern comes in. They gave up the second most points per game in the nation last year.

[Huckleberry Pig]

great write up nickey - I'll be keeping an eye on this game for sure

[nickeydyme]

Hey Guys,

Thanks, i've been checking this site out for a while, i usually post on Covers but i don't get very good feedback it seems, lotta know-it-alls over there...

I am concerned about Marshall D for season but not really for this first game. This is a complete mismatch talentwise imo.

[gojetsgomoxies]

cato and offense should be awesome. defense should be much improved. good team to back

haven't looked into miami-ohio at all. thus no insights

[J_On_A_Roll]

This should be an explosive game, seeing that neither of these teams had good secondary defense. Miami Oh gave up 12.5 yards per catch last season in total. To put it in perspective, they gave up 13.9 yards per catch to lowly akron zips and 11.2 to very lowly massachusetts. Its going to be a shootout but Marshall have more than enough firepower to do the job. Rush yards were 7.0 per rush for akron and 5.2 for massachusetts. All Marshall gotta do is open up play action then it will be a long day for Miami Oh. Statfox.com is my resource.