"Herd" Them To Mobile?

The Thundering Herd “visits” Tulane in Mobile this weekend- as despite the Memphis Commercial Appeal best efforts (see the part entitled "Players for sale or rent" toward the bottom) - Tulane will play football this week. I repeat- will play! The New York Post has the Wave -1 over Marshall- a tepid line for a tepid game in front of a tepid crowd.

I really thought the Wave would come to play last weekend: a comfortable quarterback putting up enough points to support an emotional defensive performance- all centered on saving the season. Instead, Tulane drowned in a sea of turnovers- and the defense played merely sort of okay. The Wave took it on the chin.

In Marshall, you get a team, aside from a nice home win over UAB, that has lost and won when it should. They strike me as being a little like Tulane- a pretty good defense, some pluses on offense. However, they get nothing from Bernard Morris or Jimmy Skinner at the quarterback position (barely 200 yards per game- not much in C-USA). Of course, Tulane counters with quarterback play that literally sucks at your immortal soul.

If you thought Ricard would play well in this spot- you could take the Wave and go home secure. But, last week, the bloom officially came off Ricard in my eyes- now he’s got to show it before I believe UAB/Navy last year weren’t two fluke efforts in what will be one day a 30-start NCAA career. I think we all agree this second-half is now being played almost completely as a referendum on Ricard. Now is the time big guy.

It seems to me most folks have already dismissed this season somewhat- falling into one of two camps. The first group believes the Wave has been whipped by the ‘cane- the second is that Wave is merely sort of bad.

You folks know I have been a firm supporter of the latter position since last spring. But the one advantage of my position is that you can still believe the Wave can rally to salvage something for the season- rather than the “woe-is-the-hurricane-and-its-effect-on-Ricard” crowd. Frankly, to me, saying the kids can’t handle this situation because of displacement and worry and hardship- in a way, sort of, slurs them worse than saying they aren’t very good football players ever could or would.

Consequently, I think the Wave is still capable of playing with verve and fire. Marshall hasn’t played well away from home this year- which makes the game even more of a toss-up. The normal blizzard of Tulane turnovers will be countered by a blizzard from Marshall’s own turnover machines at quarterback. This is a game that figures, in true C-USA style, to be played in the upper-20s. I think Tulane can get there- and Marshall might not. So, for the second time this year, I like Tulane. I’ll give the point- and pray Ricard knows which green jerseys to throw to under duress.