By Bill Cornwell
HUNTINGTON – For the 4th time this season, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a halt to scheduled Marshall football games.
The 15th ranked Thundering Herd (7-0, 4-0) was scheduled to host Charlotte on Saturday afternoon at 12:30, but the game has been postponed due to Covid-19 issues with the 49ers program.
Charlotte was scheduled to play Gardner-Webb last weekend, but that game was postponed due to Covid-19 issues with the Bulldogs program. The 49ers have lost five games due to the pandemic this fall.
“We were really looking forward to this game. Marshall has a tremendous team and it was a big opportunity to compete against them,” said 49ers Director of Athletics Mike Hill. “We’ve been on both sides of these postponements, and either way, it’s incredibly disappointing. We will use this week to get healthy and wish Marshall the best this season.”
Hills says that the 49ers will work with Conference USA and Marshall to explore the possibility of rescheduling the game.
Marshall lost its entire scheduled non-conference slate in September due to the pandemic, a schedule which included high-profile home contests with Boise State and Pittsburgh. Conference-USA games against Rice and FIU were also delayed due to Covid-19 and those games are scheduled to be made up in December. Rice will visit Marshall on December 5th and visit FIU on December 11th, a game set to kick off at 6:30 pm.
Marshall has a vacancy in its schedule on Thanksgiving weekend, but Charlotte is scheduled to host Western Kentucky on November 28th.
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The honors keep rolling in for individuals in the Marshall Football program.
The Thundering Herd was named on Monday as the Football Writers Association of America’s National Team of the Week for the second time in its history, the first time coming in 2003.
Eleventh-year Head Coach Doc Holliday was named this week to the watch list for the Paul “Bear” Bryant National Coach of the Year Award. The Hurricane native is Marshall’s all-time leader in games coached (136), wins over FBS programs (77) and has led the Thundering Herd to a 6-1 record in bowl games.
Quarterback Grant Wells has been added to the watch list for the Maxwell Award, given annually to college football’s top player. The redshirt freshman’s 7-0 record ties him for the second-longest FBS win streak to start a career as the starting QB in school history (Chase Litton, 2015). Wells has been named C-USA Offensive Player of the Week three times this season. He has completed a league-best 65.6% of his passes (126-of-192) for 1,674 yards with a league-best 16 touchdown passes. The 16 TD passes are second in the FBS among freshmen quarterbacks, trailing only Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler (18).
Wells won his 3rd Conference USA Player of the Week honor for the season this week. Junior punter Robert LeFevre was named as C-USA’s Special Teams Player of the Week for pulling double-duty in last week’s MTSU win as he added kick offs to his punting duties.
Wells picked up another individual honor on Monday, as he was named to the Davey O’Brien Midseason Watch List, an award given to the nation’s top quarterback and he was Athlon’s pick for its National Offensive Freshman of the Week as well.
Marshall Senior Offensive Lineman Josh Ball accepted an invitation this week to play in the 2021 Hula Bowl All-Star Game in Honolulu, Hawaii.