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HERDNATION.COM PFF Offense & Defense vs. Georgia Southern

Combining both write-ups here due to the short week:

Offense

There is very little that remains to be said regarding Marshall’s epic collapse against Georgia Southern. Instead of sitting at 4-2 and in the driver’s seat of the Sun Belt East, The Herd is now 3-3 and preparing to take on Georgia State this Thursday night. For the first time this season, an offensive lineman received the top PFF grade and that honor goes to Elijah Ellis who played 74 snaps and scored a 79.2 (87.9 pass block; 81.9 run block). Now for a look at how the rest of the Thundering Herd performed.

Quarterbacks:

In what was a revolving door of quarterbacks, that at times seemed to have no rhyme or reason, on Saturday night, Stone Earle received the highest grade at 55.7. Earle was nine of 17 passing for 97 yards with one interception. He also rushed 12 times for 45 yards. In contrast, Bralon Braxton was nine of 12 passing for 92 yards with two touchdowns and ran the ball 8 times for 36 yards. Braxton also had two costly fumbles down the stretch. As such, Braxton graded 47.7 – the lowest among Marshall’s offensive side of the ball.

Running Backs:

A.J. Turner continues to lead the way out of the backfield as he had 14 carries for 97 yards and received a PFF grade of 69.5. Jordan Houston followed suit with 6 carries for 18 yards and two catches for 25 yards while grading 62.3. Ethan Payne carried the ball three times for four yards and graded 54.5.

Wide Receivers:

Despite only recording one catch for four yards, Tychaun Chapman earned the top grade among Marshall’s wide receivers at 74.4. Christian Fitzpatrick, who led the team in receiving with five catches for 49 yards, was next in like with a grade of 72.1. Chuck Montgomery graded 67.1 while tallying four catches for 45 yards and Carl Chester, who had two catches for 46 yards, graded 57.7. Other grades of note: DeMarcus Harris: 53.5; Bralon Brown: 47.9.

Tight Ends:

Although The Herd’s usage of tight ends continues to be underwhelming, especially in comparison to off-season expectations, Toby Payne scored two touchdowns and graded 60.1. Cade Conley received a grade of 57.0 and Justin Holmes earned a 56.5.

Offensive Line:

With Marshall’s top offensive grade for Week 7, Elijah Ellis played 74 snaps and scored a grade of 79.2 (87.9 pass block; 81.9 run block). Ellis was followed by Bryce Ramsey who also played 74 snaps and graded 73.1 (45.2 pass block; 77.3 run block). Logan Osburn graded 66.8 (71.8 pass block; 66.9 run block) on 71 snaps, while Jeremy Jones played 74 snapes and scored 62.3 (69.4 pass block; 58.3 run block). Jalen Slappy rounds out the offensive line with a grade of 61.0 (71.9 pass block; 58.1 run block) on 52 snaps.
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Decades and counting

It is Halloween again. My first Halloween in my house, I had one kid. One. A little girl dressed as a witch or maybe a witch dressed like a little girl. You can never be sure. I didn’t even realize what day it was so I had nothing to give her. I finally found a week old apple in the frig. The very worst treat you can give a kid.

That was decades ago and even though I now buy a bag of candy every year to hand out, I have never had another kid come to the door. I keep telling myself it is because I live in a dark inaccessible area where the houses are far apart, but there is a part of me that believes the witch-kid cursed me. Handing out an apple, I probably deserve it.

About last night -- Georgia Southern

I know I usually wait a self-imposed 24 hours after a loss to post this thread, but after last night there's no reason to wait... Last night was as pathetic a collapse as we've had in a while (and we've had several in the past decade against teams like Rice, MTSU, Charlotte, etc).

As I was leaving the stadium, I got a text from a friend who gives 10 times what I give to MU every year, and the message was a very succinct -- "Fire him on the tarmac"

Here's the good, the bad, and the ugly from last night --
The Good --
• We started well. Got the ball, got points, built a lead... The scripted plays for the first few possessions worked pretty well.
• Turner is still our best offensive player, and even though we have no idea how to use him, he continues to put up good numbers.
• The front four on defense played well.
• Veerhoff deserves the game ball - Best game of his MU career by a mile.

The Bad --
• Pretty much every play after the buzzer sounded to end the third quarter.
• The secondary was flat bad... Gave up 325 passing yards and a couple TDs, most of that after halftime to a backup QB.
• Coaching... Just incredibly terrible... More about that in a second.

The Ugly --
• The two quarterback nonsense... Some of us were concerned that this would play out the way it did, where both guys play, both are meh, and we dont have any momentum or continuity. If you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterback. It's time to pick one and roll with it. I dont care which it is, but there has to be one guy.
• The usage of our best players... We finally threw the ball to Payne, and holy shit he scored two TDs. Its almost like we should have been using the TE more (as pretty much everyone on here as pointed out going back to last year). Turner is gashing them for three quarters? - Perfect, lets run the ball with our two QBs and not give him the ball late! That way we can get tackled for a loss, fumble, etc and blow an almost certain win.
• Prevent defense has always been, and still is, terrible.

The thoughts of winning the East and all that were fun for a week. But we can't get out of own way long enough for something like that.

Let's pick a quarterback (one)... and try to make up for last nights debacle against a bad Georgia State team.
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