Okay you are all not wrong and yes that was my first post. I do believe that Cato was feeding Shuler and they were trying to break the record. 26 receptions is a big number but it would have been great to see that. I was at the game and every Marshall fan in my section was pulling for him and counting down the receptions. I do beleive they were trying to break the record.
NIU coaches comment:
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They absolutely did not go into the last possession hoping/planning to get Tommy 10 receptions in the final 3 minutes. That's the total he needed on the last "drive" to get to 100. They were however letting a couple guys that played 8 years together play a little toss and catch to run the clock out, until NIU stepped up to take it away. At that point we ran the clock out on the ground.
Are we really arguing about the final drive again??
Who gives a shit, we kicked their ass and I was hoping to drive and score again
13-1 Conference Champions and Bowl Champions, that's all that matters
Who gives a shit, we kicked their ass and I was hoping to drive and score again
13-1 Conference Champions and Bowl Champions, that's all that matters
I don't care about it one bit. NIU, led by their head coach, talked smack. Doc stuck his boot up his ass. Game over.
Oh you should read their CSNbbs board. They think they are a Big XII team and they played horrible. They kept saying Georgia Southern would wipe the field with us.
I said before this game that if we clikced offensivsly they would not be able to keep pace. Run first offenses are out dated and cannot compete at the highest levels of college football.
They methodically move the ball on their best drives. We take huge chunks. It was funny reading their board. They kept pointing to how many more plays that were running and kept saying soo we would be worn down and they would have their way.
They were even taking shots at Cato saying that he was nothing special.
The sign that our program is back is that tteams despise us again. I love it.
I said before this game that if we clikced offensivsly they would not be able to keep pace. Run first offenses are out dated and cannot compete at the highest levels of college football.
They methodically move the ball on their best drives. We take huge chunks. It was funny reading their board. They kept pointing to how many more plays that were running and kept saying soo we would be worn down and they would have their way.
They were even taking shots at Cato saying that he was nothing special.
The sign that our program is back is that tteams despise us again. I love it.
Over the last five years, Alabama has had one of the slowest paced offenses in the country and was run-first (though a bit different with their new OC this season). They were a run-first based offense. How did they fare?
In 2013, these successful teams were in the eleven slowest teams in football: Alabama (11-2), Wisconsin (9-4), UCF (12-1), Louisville (12-1), Kansas state (8-5), Georgia tech (7-6), Arkansas (3-9).
Of those seven, at least six would be considered run-first offenses. How are most of those teams doing at the highest level of football?
The slowest two teams in the NFL this season are the Seahawks and cowboys. The Seahawks have more rushes than all except one NFL team. The cowboys have more rushes than all but two NFL teams. The Seahawks and cowboys are tied for the second best record in the NFL.
The facts show your statements to be completely false. Some of the slowest paced and heaviest run first offenses are very successful at the highest levels of football.
Gotta agree with Rifle on this one. Run first isn't bad at all. But I don't think we are as much as a pass happy team as many think. In fact, I am pretty sure our play selection is pretty much split. And I also don't think there is any debate our offense is more productive when Devon Johnson is healthy. He obviously plays RB.
There are no absolutes in College Football. The CFP shows that, Oregon, FSU, Alabama, OSU all do it different ways. But at the P5 level smash mouth football is alive and well.
I will say that at the mid-major level you better be able to open it up, in order to compete with the big boys. Navy is an exception but that is a totally different animal. Snyder tried the Big Ten style and failed miserably.
In the NFL it's a proven fact, come playoffs, if you can't run the ball, you are done.
100% agree - we have better coaches, athletes/play makers - and our really just bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter - NIU got pancaked in all 3 phases and was really never in the game. We essentially hammered them and they're lucky the score wasn't worse. Their coach was rude-butthurt and barely shook Doc's hand, poor losers. Shows you the massive gap between CUSA and the MAC - we won ALL bowl games, oops, cept the UTEP game and UTAH st. is a d@mn good team.
Niu coach ran his mouth in the papers all week and doc gave him a lesson.
He said we had not played a really good Mac team, he said he was not impressed with our team speed, he said he did not think
We could stand up to a physical team like niu.
And as far as throwing the ball at the, doc pulled Cato early all year, many here complained about pulling them so early plus it was their last time ever on the field together let them enjoy it, and finally.
I remember what coach pruett said when we went down to play #1 florida and had half the team suspended at the last minute and they scored a ton of points on us. Pruett said it is their job to try to score and our job to try to stop them.
By the way that oh so weak cusa schedule we played is undefeated against MW,Mac and big 10
This post was edited on 12/26 8:42 PM by dherd
He said we had not played a really good Mac team, he said he was not impressed with our team speed, he said he did not think
We could stand up to a physical team like niu.
And as far as throwing the ball at the, doc pulled Cato early all year, many here complained about pulling them so early plus it was their last time ever on the field together let them enjoy it, and finally.
I remember what coach pruett said when we went down to play #1 florida and had half the team suspended at the last minute and they scored a ton of points on us. Pruett said it is their job to try to score and our job to try to stop them.
By the way that oh so weak cusa schedule we played is undefeated against MW,Mac and big 10
This post was edited on 12/26 8:42 PM by dherd
Good post dherd, one thing to correct though. CUSA isn't undefeated against MW in bowl play....Utah St beat UTEP.
This is exactly what was going on. I so wish he would have gotten his 26. I was counting them down all game.
So you honestly feel they went into the last drive trying to get Tommy 10 more catches in roughly two minutes?
dherd - the funniest comment was "a physical team like NIU" and we literally pushed them around all game, it was great!
my favorite play - dj's first carry when he just kept stiff arming old boy all the way to the sideline - at that moment i knew we had come to play and come to whoop some @ss...the scoreboard told the rest of the tale.
At halftime you were up by 11, and 7 of those were from the kick return. And 3 were from us missing a chip shot field goal. NIU actually led in yardage after the half. And even at the end of the game the total yardage wasn't that different, and we led in time of possession. That's hardly pushing us around all game.
The real difference was that you had a really good QB, one of the best in FBS, and we had a mediocre one. Devon Johnson is similar to Stingily, except faster. Stingily didn't get as many big holes to run through as Johnson had.
If Johnson had bigger holes to run through then that would lead one to believe our O line was better too. So better QB, better o line, better RB, and better special teams. Not trying to argue with you, but it would be hard to argue NIU was better at anything. They ended with a small time of possession advantage, but remember the first half was 20-10 in NIU's T.O.P. favor and you still trailed by 11. That also means 2nd half was about 19-11 in Marshall's T.O.P. favor, meaning the so called more physical team that planned to wear Marshall out in the 4th quarter was the team that got worn out, even after their defense got most of the first half off. The 2nd half onside kick was a clear signal NIU's coach knew they were outmanned and needed to think outside the box. None of this is meant as a knock on NIU, I think it's a fine program, the team was just outmatched.
I went into the game very concerned about NIU pushing us around. What surprised me was that we were much faster than they were, we were physically stronger and were in better shape. By Q4 they were totally whipped. Again I was shocked by this but loved every second of it. Of all our bowl wins the last two may have been the most satisfying to me. These and the BYU win of course.
Marshall scores fast and almost always loses the time of possession battle.
Posted from Rivals Mobile
Posted from Rivals Mobile
Much of the debate here mentions Marshall being stronger and in better shape. Coach Sinclair Rocks!
We threw bubble screens and outs and Cato ran and THEN they called another TO. Their fault. If we had come out throwing it deep, crossing routes, anything vertical, I would understand being upset.
I remember the NIU announcers looking to see why Marshall was still throwing at the end, they wondered if Marshall wanted Shuler to break some kind of record or something. I personally didn't care though, as Marshall was throwing short passes, NIU should have no difficulty holding those to short gains, and time would run out, which it did. I'm not sure why our coach called a timeout unless he was trying to get some players in the game.
Defenses are always packed in near the endzone. I'd call that more an example of unimaginative playcalling. E.g. Marshall faked to the RB and Cato kept it and scored a TD that way. Also, we didn't have Stingily on that series - he was on the bench getting his ankle retaped after limping off the field.
If we stop NIU once in the red zone, even twice, it could be a fluke or something else. When you do it consistently, several times it's just because our red zone defense, and players, is better than their red zone offense and players. We were a stout RZ defense all year. When you concentrate all of our speed in a small portion of the field we are just going to make more plays than the opponents we had this year.
We were very athletically superior to Ohio last year too, moved the ball up and down the field on them. It's well documented we lost that game because of 4 fumbles. All the athleticism in the world doesn't matter if you don't secure the ball. Marshall was about 3 plays away from being 13-0 last year headed into the CUSA title game, that's part of a program learning how to win and growing each year.
The first catch by Shuler in this sequence allowed him to set the CUSA record for most receptions. The second catch was a dink of four yards so the play was just ball control. NIU couldn't cover Shu the whole game, so why stop making the plays that worked all night long? IMHO, if Doc wanted another score, he could have thrown more high percentage passes to Jean-Louis or McManus. Cato was deadly on his corner throws during the game.
So let's all make up and play nice.
So let's all make up and play nice.
I noticed the year before you also had more fumbles than Ohio. At some point, it's simply a matter of not being good enough, it's not an excuse. If Marshall was so athletically talented as some claim they are, they should have been able to overcome that when playing a team like Ohio. When I watched that game, I didn't see any big difference in talent other than QB.
You do realize they turned it over 4 times and lost by 3? That's the definition of staying in the game because they were athletically superior and not executing the fundamentals of ball security. With each post you come across as more and more of a bitter NIU fan. If Marshall turned it over four times against NIU the Huskies might have even put up a fight on Tuesday, most football fans understand nothing turns a game around like turnovers. WKU sure appreciated the 4 we had against them.
This post was edited on 12/28 9:34 PM by Herd4ever07
This post was edited on 12/28 9:34 PM by Herd4ever07
Sure, but you had 3 turnovers the year before that, to Ohio's 1. At some point you have to admit that turnovers are part of the game. You can take more risks and move the ball down the field, but you can't then disavow mistakes that are made in the process. If Marshall was so much more talented they would have overcome that with ease.
Marshall is not much more talented than the top MAC teams. They just had a much better QB than any of the MAC teams this year. That made them much better than NIU this year. But I wouldn't underestimate what the loss of Cato will mean next year.
Marshall is not much more talented than the top MAC teams. They just had a much better QB than any of the MAC teams this year. That made them much better than NIU this year. But I wouldn't underestimate what the loss of Cato will mean next year.
I love Cato, but most people will tell you he wasn't even the most valuable part of Marshall's offense this year. No one will disagree with you turnovers are a big part of the game, that was my whole point that went over your head. You are trying so hard to discredit everything Marshall that you ignore their athleticism is far superior to NIU's or any other MAC teams. Athleticism doesn't always equate fundamentals, it can actually cause fundamentals to be ignored and you'd be hardpressed to find any Herd fans that wouldnt say when Marshall struggles it's with turnovers. No one in CUSA or the MAC compares to Marshall athletically on a whole, fundamentally I think a few more than hold their own with us. LaTech has a terrific defense, inconsistent offense. WKU had a great offense and a lousy defense. It's hard for g5's to be complete.
I also think you are confusing how reliant NIU was on Jordan Lynch with how dependent Marshall is on Cato. Rakeem is amazing, so is Johnson, so are some of the receivers, so are some of the lineman that allowed the team to run for nearly 300 yards a game on top of Cato's passing. This is a very complete offense and the defenses that had the best luck against Marshall stated their game plan was to take away the running game and make Cato have to beat them in the air. Very few colleges are going to instantly replace 14000 passing yards and 131 TDs, but outside of WKU Marshall will still be more explosive on offense than any CUSA or MAC teams next year. The key will be if the defense plays like they have the last two years or if we have to try and win shootouts ala 2012. This years team was very balanced on offense, far more than I think you want to realize.
I also think you are confusing how reliant NIU was on Jordan Lynch with how dependent Marshall is on Cato. Rakeem is amazing, so is Johnson, so are some of the receivers, so are some of the lineman that allowed the team to run for nearly 300 yards a game on top of Cato's passing. This is a very complete offense and the defenses that had the best luck against Marshall stated their game plan was to take away the running game and make Cato have to beat them in the air. Very few colleges are going to instantly replace 14000 passing yards and 131 TDs, but outside of WKU Marshall will still be more explosive on offense than any CUSA or MAC teams next year. The key will be if the defense plays like they have the last two years or if we have to try and win shootouts ala 2012. This years team was very balanced on offense, far more than I think you want to realize.
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