— By Bill Cornwell
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall football players say they were able to quickly get over last Saturday’s 37-20 home loss to North Carolina State.
Those players realize that this week is the first step toward one of the team’s top preseason goals — a Conference USA title.
The Herd (2-1) opens league play Saturday night in Bowling Green, Ky. against perhaps its biggest conference rival in the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers.
Game time at Houchens-Smith Stadium is 7:30 p.m. and the game is being televised nationally by Stadium.
Senior running back Keion Davis says he and his Herd teammates have already refocused on conference play after suffering their first loss of the year at the hands of the Wolfpack.
“It’s a new season and a new start and you can determine the focus for the rest of the season by what we do on Saturday,” Davis said.
Herd fans had high hopes for an upset of a Power 5 conference team Saturday at Joan C. Edwards Stadium, but N.C.State and its likely future NFL quarterback Ryan Finley proved too much to handle.
Junior safety Malik Gant says Herd players can’t afford to linger on the last game as the fans do.
“We just lock in, look at film and go on to the next game,” Gant said. “Players have to snap back quickly and not dwell on the past.”
Western Kentucky comes in off of its first win of the year, a 28-20 victory at Ball State. Prior to that win, the Hilltoppers had a 34-3 season-opening loss at Wisconsin, a 31-28 home loss to FCS opponent Maine and a narrow 20-17 defeat at Louisville, a game in which Western Kentucky led the Cardinals in the 4th quarter.
Senior wide receiver Marcel Williams, who had an 82-yard touchdown catch against N.C. State, expects the Hilltoppers to bring a big effort against the Herd and believes it’s up to Marshall to bring the same intensity.
“Everybody is playing more for a purpose and the focus is more serious at practice,” Williams said. “This is a very important time when we need to lock in and focus and play our best ball.”
Marshall and Western Kentucky have had some interesting battles since the two began playing against each other in Conference USA.
Marshall leads the all-time series, 5-4, but the Hilltoppers have claimed wins in three of the three league meetings against the Herd.
The most memorable of those MU-WKU encounters in Conference USA came in 2014 at Joan C Edwards Stadium. Marshall was undefeated at the time, nationally ranked and poised to possibly take the Group of 5 spot in a New Year’s Day bowl, but the Hilltoppers used a devastating offense to ruin the Herd’s dream season in a 67-66 overtime win.
The victory came after then-WKU coach Jeff Brohm’s gamble to go for two after an overtime touchdown.
The Herd lost to Western in 2015, 49-28, and the Hilltoppers won again in Huntington in 2016, 60-6. Last season, the Herd finally picked up a league win over Western, 30-23, in another game played in Huntington..
Senior offensive lineman Jordan Dowrey says Herd fans shouldn’t be fooled by Western’s non-conference when you look at the solid competition the Hilltoppers faced and believes both teams are stressing the importance of a strong start to conference play.
“When you get into conference play, everyone brings it because there’s more at stake in these games,” Dowrey said. “We have to focus because this game matters more than any game so far and now the urgency has changed.”