Below is an article in The Athletic. In it Holiday states that a fill-in game on Oct 3 looks unlikely.
Marshall just defeated its third AP-ranked opponent in school history and is ranked in the AP poll for the first time since 2014. But any momentum from that has essentially stopped.
That’s because the No. 25 Thundering Herd aren’t scheduled to play another game until Oct. 10, three weeks after last Saturday’s 17-7 win against Appalachian State. The COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on college football has left some schools with large breaks in the schedule.
“You’re happy with what’s going on,” head coach Doc Holliday said this week about his team’s start. “I just have concerns because we don’t play for three weeks. The way things are right now, it’s hard to get in a rhythm and hard to get any kind of routine. That concerns me, staying sharp and staying crisp and keeping the guys going in the right direction. That’s something we’ve never had to deal with. There’s no blueprint for what’s happening right now.”
Before the pandemic, Marshall was supposed to play East Carolina, Pitt, Ohio, Boise State and Rice the first five weeks. Instead, because of postponements and cancellations, the Thundering Herd are 2-0 with wins against Eastern Kentucky and Appalachian State and now have another two weeks off. The conference game with Rice might be rescheduled on the back end, but at the moment, Marshall has only six games left on the schedule.
Holiday said Marshall tried to get a game scheduled for this week or next but couldn’t make something work. He’d have liked to play one, so his team didn’t have so much time off.
“I don’t think there’s any question,” he said. “We’ll get another game eventually. The conference will get us another game. I was hoping that was Oct. 3, but that doesn’t look like the case. We can’t control that.”
The idle weeks won’t be treated like normal idle weeks, because there are two. Holliday said Marshall plans to focus on depth and getting more players ready to play. There aren’t many reps for the third team in preseason camp, especially this year, and those players are even more important when positive COVID-19 tests or contact tracing can take out depth at a position at any time.
“You’ve got to get more players ready to play right now than ever before,” Holliday said. “You don’t know when they’re going to have to play.”
For now, Marshall will work on itself and work on preparing for Western Kentucky on Oct. 10. Things change by the week in college football, and long waits are the new normal. This is North Carolina’s second consecutive week off after its game against Charlotte was canceled and the Tar Heels couldn’t find an opponent for this week. This is college football in 2020.
Marshall will also enjoy its top-25 ranking while it can. The Big Ten’s impending return will likely knock the No. 25 Thundering Herd out of the poll anyway, but that doesn’t change the exposure Marshall got in its first two games.
“Anytime you can get the top 25, that’s great for your program,’ Holliday said. “The one thing has been a really positive for us is we’ve had two national TV audiences back to back. We had a 3:30 spot on CBS, which was huge for our program, huge for our school and our community and our fan base. The same thing with ESPN game a couple weeks prior with Eastern Kentucky. So that’s been great for us. Our kids have embraced it and we’ve enjoyed it.”
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