{"id":17440,"date":"2011-09-03T22:00:50","date_gmt":"2011-09-04T03:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=17440"},"modified":"2011-09-03T11:53:13","modified_gmt":"2011-09-03T16:53:13","slug":"college-football-sunday-marshall-thundering-herd-at-west-virginia-mountaineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-football-sunday-marshall-thundering-herd-at-west-virginia-mountaineers-17440\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football Sunday: Marshall Thundering Herd at West Virginia Mountaineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marshall Thundering Herd at No. 24 West Virginia Mountaineers
\nSunday, 9\/4\/11, 3:30 PM, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 West Virginia -18.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 West Virginia -23
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 52.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 55.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The West Virginia Mountaineers are heavy favorites in the "Friends of Coal" Bowl in Morgantown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marshall let one slip away last year by allowing West Virginia to score 15 points in the final 8:28 of last year\u2019s meeting to send the game to overtime, eventually dropping a 24-21 contest in Huntington.\u00a0 The Thundering Herd had the Mountaineers on their heels until true freshman running back Tron Martinez lost a fumble on West Virginia\u2019s four-yard line.\u00a0 The team finished with a 5-7 overall record, 4-4 mark in Conference USA action.\u00a0 Marshall is 25-48 ATS in road games and 13-26 ATS in September action.<\/p>\n

The Thundering Herd will be playing without senior wide receiver Troy Evans after he was charged with four armed robberies that occurred early Sunday near campus.\u00a0 True freshman quarterback Rakeem Cato will have to look at other options on the outside, including Wayne Bonner, Aaron Dobson, and Antavious Wilson.\u00a0 Marshall\u2019s strength is definitely found on the defensive side of the ball, bringing back nine starters and seven of the top 10 tacklers.\u00a0 The unit ranked fourth in total defense (386 ypg) and scoring defense (28.8) amongst Conference USA teams last year.<\/p>\n

West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen will get his first experience in the \u201cFriends of Coal\u201d Bowl inside Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown.\u00a0 He was hired during the offseason after spending last year orchestrating one of the best offensive units in college football.\u00a0 Oklahoma State led the nation in total offense under his direction.\u00a0 He has been preaching all week for the team to treat this rivalry like any other game.\u00a0 \u201cI think the same thing going into any game,\u201d Holgorsen commented.\u00a0 \u201cWe kind of ignore who we are playing.\u201d\u00a0 West Virginia is 7-11 ATS as a favorite the last two years.<\/p>\n

The Mountaineers will be led offensively by second-year quarterback Geno Smith, who threw for 2,763 yards and 24 touchdowns a year ago.\u00a0 West Virginia has been one of the best programs nationally over recent years, posting a 59-17 record over the past 76 games.\u00a0 Most the success can be attributed to the 282 turnovers the team has grabbed since 2001, which ranks fourth nationally over that span.\u00a0 West Virginia ranked fourth in the nation by allowing just 261.1 yards per game a season ago.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Mountaineers due to the home team being 4-1 ATS in the last five meetings, while the Thundering Herd are 1-5 ATS as a road underdog.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marshall Thundering Herd at No. 24 West Virginia Mountaineers Sunday, 9\/4\/11, 3:30 PM, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 West Virginia -18.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 West Virginia -23 Opening Total:\u00a0 52.5 Current Total:\u00a0 55.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Marshall let one slip away last year by allowing West Virginia to score 15 points in the final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":16532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[2558,5399,5400,2863,5398,449],"class_list":["post-17440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-conference-usa","tag-dana-holgorsen","tag-geno-smith","tag-marshall-thundering-herd","tag-milan-puskar-stadium","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17442,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17440\/revisions\/17442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}