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What's your bowl pick?

I'm looking forward to going pretty much to any of the bowls where we are mentioned. However, the two that get me the most excited are Boca Raton vs BYU or a matchup with ECU. I'll still be there, but least excited about Lending Tree Bowl vs Ball State and Cure Bowl vs Ohio or Buffalo. New Mexico Bowl vs Wyoming might be a little difficult to make...but I'll try. JMHO, would like to hear from others. Happy Thanksgiving and GO HERD!

Happy Thanksgiving

It's been a tough year of losses for our family and we have an individual currently fighting stage IV that's terminal. He's younger than me. He stayed with us for a few weeks in September and I drove him into his cancer treatments here in Pittsburgh before I'd go into work. I'd pick him up after.

They eventually called the trial off as the cancer is too aggressive. He's on hospice now and I'm not sure how much time is left, but he fought a hard 4 years.

This is definitely one of the worst things I've been around as I've never had a personal encounter with cancer. The worst thing is, as mentioned above, he's younger than me by a couple of years.

Basically saying: draw your loved ones close and enjoy this Holiday and the forthcoming ones and try to make time slow down as much as you can.

It ain't the size of your house . . . and I've done pretty well between now and when I last posted in this board years ago. I have a lot of things I probably shouldn't and a woman I don't deserve. What I've found is I can buy pleasure, but you have to create true happiness. Money doesn't do that.

We're going to celebrate the best we can with some absences in the room tomorrow due to this final battle. If the opportunity is OK, we'll go over and visit them.

I don't want any sympathy for me about this because it's not my battle. I can't claim it—it's just something horrific he and his wife have lived for 4 years.

My wish is for everyone's health this year and forward.

Happy Thanksgiving.

PFF Offensive Grades: Marshall 23, Georgia Southern 10

In yet another strong performance, the Marshall Thundering Herd went to the road en route to claiming its fourth victory over its last five contests, picking up a big 23-10 win over Georgia Southern to claim its fourth victory in its last five contests and move to 7-4 overall (4-3 in Sun Belt Conference play) for the season.

Offensively, Cam Fancher posted another good performance, throwing for 274 yards and two touchdowns (one each to EJ Horton and Shadeed Ahmed) while the return of Rasheed Ali, the continued effectiveness of Khalan Laborn, and a strong performance by the offensive line led to a complete performance by the Thundering Herd.

QUARTERBACK:

Fancher, in throwing for his season high in yardage, went 17-of-32 through the air while hitting a total of nine different Marshall players for pass completions in the contest as part of a well-balanced attack. The redshirt freshman averaged 8.6 yards per completion and was also strong on the ground, running for 63 yards on 14 carries en route to a PFF grade of 66.9.

RUNNING BACKS:

Laborn, who posted 105 yards of total offense, notched 70 yards on 17 carries for a 4.1 yard-per-carry average and caught two passes for 35 yards en route to a 71.1 PFF mark -- the second-highest grade among all offensive players -- while Ali, in his first game of the year, led Marshall in rushing with 79 yards on 16 attempts for a 4.9 yard-per-carry mark. Ali also caught a pass for five yards and through his efforts, achieved a 66.9 PFF grade.

Ethan Payne (5 carries, 28 yards, 62.2 PFF) and A.J. Turner (1 carry, 9 yards, 65.1 PFF) also did well in limited touches.

WIDE RECEIVERS:

Marshall didn't have a receiver break the 100-yard barrier as it did with Charles Montgomery last Saturday against Appalachian State, or have two receivers eclipse the 90-yard mark as it did with Montgomery and Gammage against the Mountaineers, but the Thundering Herd's receiving core more than made up for that with its production amongst the entire group.

Jayden Harrison, who caught two passes for 43 yards, accumulated the room's best grade at 65.2 PFF, while Horton used his 65-yard touchdown reception from Fancher on the opening drive of the game to amass two receptions for 76 yards to lead the receiving room in yardage for the contest while picking up a 64.6 PFF mark. Montgomery and Gammage combined for 36 yards on five catches, with Gammage notching a 63.5 PFF and Montgomery collecting a 61.9 PFF himself.

Caden Burti, Bryan Robinson, Stone Scarcelle, Ahmed, Caleb Coombs, and Caleb McMillan rounded out the remaining production for the wide receivers, with Burti, Robinson and Scarcelle all receiving 60.1 PFF grades and Ahmed (57.8), Coombs (57.0) and McMillan (53.4) bringing up the rear in PFF grading. Ahmed caught three passes for 45 yards -- including a 33-yarder in the third quarter of action that went for a touchdown -- to lead this group of receivers while Robinson caught a pass for 15 yards.

TIGHT ENDS:

From a tight end standpoint, Devin Miller's 47.5 PFF grade and Stacey Marshall, Jr.'s 40.6 PFF grade were the two lowest PFF grades on offense for Marshall. Miller had a catch for 19 yards but collected an incredibly low 17.4 PFF grade in pass blocking, while Marshall, Jr. had just a 41.8 run blocking PFF mark.

OFFENSIVE LINE:

By PFF standards, the offensive line arguably had the best performance for the Thundering Herd as three of Marshall's top four graded players were in the trenches.

Cedrice Paillant, who played in 75 of Marshall's 89 snaps, led the charge with a very good 77.3 PFF grade -- including strong efforts of 84.2 in pass blocking and 75.8 in run blocking. Left tackle Ethan Driskell and center Logan Osburn -- who played in each of the 89 offensive snaps that the Thundering Herd had -- also were strong, notching grades of 67.7 and 67 overall with excellent pass blocking grades of 86.9 and 83.0.

Dalton Tucker (58.9 PFF), Kendrick Sartor (56.9 PFF) and Trent Holler (55.7 PFF) rounded out the main efforts for Marshall.

OffensePassingPass BlockingReceivingRunningRun Blocking
72.766.478.859.867.861.4

PlayerOffensePassingPass BlockingRunning GradeRun Blocking
Cedrice Paillant77.3No Grade84.2No Grade75.8
Khalan Laborn71.890.272.864.759.4
Ethan Driskell67.731.086.9No Grade67.1
Logan Osburn67.0No Grade83.0No Grade65.0
Cam Fancher66.966.4No Grade61.460.1
Rasheen Ali66.857.876.267.257.7
Jayden Harrison65.369.2No GradeNo Grade60.7
A.J. Turner65.160.0No Grade63.1No Grade
EJ Horton64.664.1No GradeNo Grade61.1
Corey Gammage63.563.1No GradeNo Grade60.1
Ethan Payne62.257.472.762.558.3
Charles Montgomery61.960.7No Grade63.158.0
Caden Burti60.1No GradeNo GradeNo Grade60.2
Bryan Robinson60.1No GradeNo GradeNo Grade59.5
Stone Scarcelle60.1No GradeNo GradeNo Grade59.8
Dalton Tucker58.4No Grade71.3No Grade55.7
Shadeed Ahmed57.857.7No GradeNo Grade61.0
Caleb Coombs57.057.1No GradeNo Grade57.7
Kendrick Sartor56.8No Grade61.9No Grade58.7
Trent Holler55.7No Grade79.3No Grade52.9
Caleb McMillan53.452.6No GradeNo Grade60.9
Devin Miller47.550.417.4No Grade55.9
Stacey Marshall, Jr.40.653.7No GradeNo Grade41.8

Marshall vs Georgia State - Tale of the Tape

The two offenses are very similar and if Fancher starts the rest of this year and all of next year, I'm estimating he's going to look a lot like Panther QB Darren Grainger. Georgia State does a good job of spreading teams out and hitting seam plays both with the pass and the run, using Grainger's athleticism to stress the defense. In fact, it's not Marshall or App State that leads the Sun Belt in rushing, it's Georgia State with the #11 rushing offense in the country. Their leading rusher? QB Darren Grainger. WR Jamari Thrash is their shot-play guy at receiver averaging nearly 19 yards per reception and has 300 yards receiving in the past 2 games. So far they've been better in the Red Zone and that's why they're averaging about a touchdown more per game this season. They don't have a back anywhere close to Laborn or Ali's talent, however, they do have a really really good offensive line that may give us our biggest challenge since the Notre Dame game. They have 4 starters back from last year and coming into the season returned 143 career starts along the offensive line (3rd most in the country). By comparison, we returned 36 starts (118th in the country).
Defensively, Georgia State is similar to Georgia Southern. From a rankings perspective, they're 10-15 spots higher than Georgia Southern was in most categories when I did the comparison last week. However, it's still a bad unit that will give up consistent yardage on the ground and through the air. If you watched their second half against JMU, you know what I'm talking about.

Marshall (7-4)
Georgia State (4-7)
PPG23.8 (95th)30.6 (52nd)
Points Allowed15.55 (7th)31.45 (111th)
Total Offense398.5 (60th)421.8 (42nd)
Rush Offense199.0 (26th)227.3 (11th)
Pass Offense199.5 (104th)194.5 (107th)
Offensive Pass Effic126.72 (93rd)138.69 (58th)
3rd Down Offense37% (88th)40% (54th)
Total Defense286.2 (10th)391.5 (82nd)
Rush Defense91.2 (6th)160.7 (81st)
Pass Defense195.0 (26th)230.7 (76th)
Defensive Pass Effic102.33 (3rd)136.2 (91st)
3rd Down Defense21% (1st)41% (92nd)
Turnover Margin Per Game+0.73 (14th)+0.45 (31st)
Penalty Yards Per Game62.45 (107th)65.55 (117th)
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