— By Bill Cornwell
In the lead-up to the start of fall practice next week, first-year Marshall football head coach Tony Gibson was joined by junior offensive lineman Jalen Slappy and junior defensive back Cam Smith at this week’s Sun Belt Conference Football Media Days in New Orleans.
The three met the media two days after league coaches picked Marshall to finish sixth place among seven teams in the league’s East Division despite the Herd being defending Sun Belt champion.
After winning the league title at Louisiana, former MU head coach Charles Huff left for Southern Miss, and a large contingent of former Herd players went with Huff.
Gibson, a Van native, was then hired and has said Marshall isn’t a steppingstone.
“You’ve got a head coach at Marshall now that wants to be there and we’re going to do everything in our power to continue to have success there,” Gibson said.
Having modest to low expectations based on the Sun belt preseason poll hardly concerns Gibson, a former defensive coordinator at North Carolina State and West Virginia.
“I don’t care where they pick us, because there’s only two things that can happen — you’re going to prove them right or prove them wrong,” Gibson said. “I know what I want to do and I know what our football team wants to do. We’re going to go out and compete every week and we’ll just see where we’re at.”
Players, including Slappy, can perhaps find more motivation by being chosen to finish second-to-last in the division.
“Every year, we get picked low in this conference, but that doesn’t matter,” Slappy said. “It’s about how we go out on every play and every game and fight. This team and this university has a lot of fight in them and that’s what we really need.”
Gibson was questioned about Marshall’s quarterback situation this week, and says while it’s a three-way battle for the starting spot, one player has a leg up at the moment.
“If we played today, Carlos Del Rio Wilson would be our starter,” Gibson said. “He earned that coming out of spring. Zion (Turner) is going to compete. JacQai Long will compete for the job, because he throws it real well and I think he’s the future of our program.”
With 72 new players on the team’s roster of 105, finding fit is as imperative to success as adding skill, according to Gibson.
“We have to find the guys that fit us and want to be part of something bigger than themselves and that’s how we attacked this out of the portal,” Gibson said. “We’re going to get after people on defense and establish the run game on offense and I want a physical football team.”
Gibson says his early months in Huntington have been a whirlwind, but there are signs his first season in Huntington could be a successful one.
“We had 10,000 people at our Spring Football Game,” Gibson said. “We’ve sold more season tickets than we have in the last decade. People are excited about what we’re doing at Marshall.”