Marshall's Troubles, U N T Implications

[MeanGreen61]

http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/

[UNTflyer]

And anyone who says C-USA wouldn't be a step up for us is crazy. Hell, just in terms of drawing fans it would be a hell of a lot better.

Marshall leaves, Tulane gets moved to the east division and UNT takes its place.

[Arkstfan]

And anyone who says C-USA wouldn't be a step up for us is crazy. Hell, just in terms of drawing fans it would be a hell of a lot better.

Marshall leaves, Tulane gets moved to the east division and UNT takes its place.

Like Tulane, Rice, SMU and Tulsa would support a plan that busts them up.

[drex]

I did a lot of work for Judy Southard when she was the AD at TWU. She is a real go getter, but I think a bit old for the Marshall gig.

[FirefightnRick]

http://www.dailymail.com/Sports/MUSports/200906030050

....Marshall is in a league that just sent three teams (East Carolina, Rice, Southern Mississippi) on to the 16-team I baseball Super Regionals ... and the Herd still doesn't have a baseball diamond (or track and field facility, for that matter).

As the northernmost member of C-USA, Marshall is a Rust Belt school trying to compete in a Sun Belt league - and I don't mean the conference of Troy, Arkansas State and Western Kentucky (where, by the way, the average AD still makes about $55,000 annually more than Marcum does).

This isn't Division I-AA and the Southern Conference anymore.

Potential candidates to succeed the resigning (I don't think the hands-on guy can really retire) Marcum, 72, can look at the position through two prisms:

The next AD can only improve the Herd in the sport its fans love most, football. Or, the AD job is fraught with peril (and continued fan disgruntlement) unless Marshall finds a way to fund athletics on close to a par with its conference peers.

Good luck with the latter....

With the move from the MAC to C-USA, operations costs have soared, and because Marshall hasn't won in football and men's basketball, its gate receipts have been flat - while expenses have gone up by about $3 million from '06 to '08 (fiscal years).

Hmmmm?

In 1997 their football program went 10-3.

....1998 they went 12-1.

....1999 they went 13-0 and the national championship.

....2000 they went 8-5.

....2001 they went 11-2.

....2002 they went 11-2.

....2003 they went 8-4.

....2004 they went 6-6.

....and from 2005 to 2008 they haven't had a winning season.

From '97 to '04 Marshall saw success that most midmajors can only dream of. A new football stadium, A National Championship, wins over BCS conference teams that operated on much higher budgets(South Carolina, Clemson, Kansas State), an emotional and inspiring movie that made them a household name and an invitation to the so called greener pastures of C-USA.

Was the move to C-USA and a needed increase in the budget to keep up with conference opponents the problem? No. The retirement of Bob Pruett in the spring of '05, the day before spring training no doubt, was the reason.

During Bob Pruett's 9 year career at Marshall the herd became the nations' winningest team for a 10 year period. Seems to me their AD salary had nothing to do with it as the article above would suggest. You don't have to pay someone a lot of money to schedule smartly. Seems to me they need to go back and find someone who coaches using the Bob Pruett model since it appears the Mark Snyder(16 wins in 4 seasons) system doesn't seem to be working for them.

Rick

Edited June 9, 2009 by FirefightnRick

[NT80]

Marshall won a national championship? I don't remember that...

wikipedia:

"During the 1990s, Marshall posted the highest winning percentage of any NCAA Division I program, winning 114 games and losing just 25. The Thundering Herd won Division I-AA national championships in 1992 and 1996 before moving to I-A in 1997, and set an Division I, FCS (formerly I-AA, now the Football Championship Subdivision of Division I athletics) record by advancing to the "Final Four" of the I-AA Tournament for six consecutive seasons.

Marshall has gone to eight bowl games in I-A, posting a 5-3 record, and the Herd finished No. 10 in the nation in 1999 in both the Associated Press poll and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll when MU was 13-0. They knocked off No. 25-ranked BYU in the 1999 Motor City Bowl in Pontiac, Michigan, 21-3 to complete the second perfect season in four years, 15-0 for 1996's I-AA Championship team..."

A playoff is the only way to settle these undefeated team debates over who is better. When will the NCAA mandate it at the only level of football that doesn't have a playoff to determine a true champion, instead of the media's champion?

[greenminer]

Marshall won a national championship? I don't remember that...

Marshall was on a tear in the 90's.

Randy Moss, Byron Leftwich, Chad Pennington...

[Arkstfan]

Rick, one could argue the UNLV syndrome with Marshall, that you can rise to national prominence by being great in a mediocre league (then someone will point out UNLV's problems had less to do with WAC and then MWC competition than it did NCAA setting up a branch office in Las Vegas and the whole thing falls apart).