After playing three Power 5 teams in the first four games of the season, the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders begin the Conference USA portion of their schedule against a team they’re quite familiar with in the Marshall Thundering Herd.
“Conference play is always an exciting time,” MTSU coach Rick Stockstill said. “Three of these first four have been a top-10 team, a top-15 team, a top-25 team, so we’ve played a gauntlet of out-of-conference [teams]. I’d put Marshall up there with anybody that we’ve played this year — that’s a good football team.”
MTSU and Marshall have grown accustomed to playing each other as the two schools have been duking it out in the C-USA East Division for the past three seasons. The Blue Raiders edged out the Thundering Herd last year for the top spot in the division with a 7-1 record.
“Yesterday, I was talking to some of the defensive backs, and I told them that the Marshall game is always big,” safety Jovante Moffatt said. “I mean, you look at the games, they’ve always been close, or one team just came in and got ahead of the other. I told them just be ready to bring your hats because this is going to be a big conference game for us and them on our side of the conference, and we both know what is at stake here.”
MTSU surrenders the most yards per game of any other team in the conference (506.5), and the Marshall offense averages nearly 400 yards per game itself. The strength of the Thundering Herd offense is the ground game, where Marshall ranks second in C-USA with 206.5 rush yards per game.
Stopping the duo of Sheldon Evans (31 carries, 175 yards, one touchdown) and Brendan Knox (52 carries, 296 yards, four touchdowns) should be top priority for the Blue Raiders.
“It starts with we’ve got to stop the run,” Stockstill said. “They’re averaging over 200 yards rushing a game, so that’s where it starts. We’ve got to … limit the big play. We’ve been giving up too many big plays through these first four games.”
While running the ball is a strength of Marshall, it is an area MTSU has certainly struggled in during the first four games. The Blue Raiders rank ninth in the conference in rush yards per game (130.5) with quarterback Asher O’Hara accounting for nearly 50 percent of that.
The redshirt junior is MTSU’s leading rusher with 202 yards, followed by Chaton Mobley with 114 yards. No other running back has more than 58 yards rushing.
“It’s really just about focusing on us,” offensive lineman Will Gilchrist said. “It’s on us for shooting ourselves in the foot and getting a bunch of penalties here and there and getting behind the sticks. We need to come back to us and keep working and grinding every day.”
Added Stockstill: “Offensively, we’ve got to find a way to establish the run. We’ve got to run the ball and be a little bit better throwing the ball. I said it after the game, it’s not so much Marshall coming up or whoever we play next. It’s about us. We’ve got to correct some things and get better at some of the things we’re doing.”