— By Bill Cornwell
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — After enjoying an off week, Marshall’s football team begins the stretch run of its 2021 schedule this week by hosting Florida International in Conference USA action.
The game at Joan C. Edwards Stadium kicks off at 3:30 p.m., and will be broadcast nationally on Stadium.
Marshall (4-3, 2-1) enters on a two-game winning streak, including a resounding 49-21 win two weeks ago at North Texas.
FIU (1-6, 0-3) is coming off a 34-19 home loss to Western Kentucky last week. The Panthers only win this season came against Long Island of the FCS. FIU is on a six-game skid and has also suffered losses to Texas State, Texas Tech, Central Michigan, Florida Atlantic and Charlotte.
Despite the Panthers’ struggles, first-year Marshall head coach Charles Huff is concerned the off week could lead to a sluggish start this week or create other problems.
“We talked about not losing the bye week, not going home and getting caught up in anything that you may not be able to control, not going home and not being cautious about COVID protocols and bringing something back, not taking advantage of the free time to be able to get ahead of your academics, not taking care of the free time to rehydrate and reenergize your body and our guys did a really good job at that,” Huff said. “Everybody was back healthy and everybody was back on time. We had a really good practice [Monday]. Got an opportunity to get a head start a little bit last week on FIU. [We] started yesterday and we’re off to a good head start.”
Veteran coach Butch Davis is in his fifth year guiding the Panthers and has a 24-27 record. Davis was previously head coach of Miami, North Carolina and the Cleveland Browns.
The Panthers are led by redshirt senior quarterback Max Bortenschlager, who isn’t afraid of challenging defenses by taking shots downfield. His favorite target is sophomore wide receiver Tyrese Chambers, who has averaged just under 30 yards on 24 receptions this season. Chambers enters with 713 receiving yards and six touchdowns.
Five FIU players have at least one 50-yard reception this season.
The Panthers air attack is complimented by a solid running game featuring senior running back D’vonte Price.
“They make a lot of big plays down the field. Their quarterback does a really good job of throwing the deep ball,” Huff said. “You can tell he understands the system, he distributes the ball where it needs to go. They’ve got two really big backs that do a really good job at running downhill with power and they’ve got enough speed to break the long ones.”
The FIU defense got off to a strong start and held Long Island and Texas State to a combined 33 points. Since then, however, the Panthers have allowed at least 31 points in all five games, including 54 to Texas Tech and 58 to Florida Atlantic.
Still, Huff says his team won’t take the unit lightly.
“Defensively, they’re really sound,” Huff said. “They do a really good job up front. From the linebacker perspective to the safety perspective, they really force you to distribute the ball in the pass game to the right areas. They force you to do a really good job of combo in your run game because they do a good job of getting off blocks.”
While FIU presents challenges, Huff believes his team’s eighth game of the season comes down to how Marshall performs, while trying to keep turnovers and penalties to a minimum, both aspects that haunted Marshall in its three losses.
“We came back in the ODU game and we played well at the North Texas game,” Huff said. “Are we satisfied? Or are we continuing to use the experiences of the three [losses]?’ We talk about the three in our building all the time — the three games where we went into the locker room and we didn’t get the results we wanted. Can that feeling motivate us to do the things we need to do to get the results we want this week. It’s the only week that matters.”