Marshall coach Charles Huff: ‘We just try to play the best we can each week’
In the three seasons that Charles Huff has been the Marshall head coach, his teams have fared well against Power Five opponents. The Thundering Herd downed Notre Dame 26-21 last season in South Bend, while they knocked off Virginia Tech 24-17 two weeks ago.
The key to Huff’s success against the bigger opponents? The transfer portal. The Thundering Herd have utilized it to their advantage, including last year’s star running back Khalan Laborn, who arrived in Huntington, W.Va., from Florida State.
Laborn’s gone, but the Thundering Herd have a good track record of impact transfers, which have helped playing against bigger teams.
“I think where the transfer portal is, it kind of nullified the G5-Power Five gap,” Huff said Monday on the Sun Belt Conference weekly coaches Zoom availability. “Typically you’ve got a handful of guys on your team that are Power Five players that for whatever reason are with you. I think it’s all encompassing.”
Marshall’s previous experience playing in Notre Dame Stadium may come into play when the Thundering Herd play at Carter-Finley Stadium for NC State’s final non-conference game of the season.
While some of his players have been in similar atmospheres like the sold-out crowd they’ll walk into in Raleigh, Huff said the actual result comes down to executing in the game.
“We’ve been in a position where we’ve been able to play well in some big environments,” Huff said. “I think that’s a tribute to where the transfer portal is now. … It’s a little bit easier now to bridge the gap, but ultimately it comes down to being able to make plays in the game.”
When Huff’s squad arrives to the City of Oaks, they’ll be the first to face NC State sophomore quarterback MJ Morris, who earned the starting job Monday, this season.
The third-year coach did not think that the Wolfpack’s change from graduate quarterback Brennan Armstrong to Morris would impact his team’s preparation much.
Huff noted that the quarterback position usually gets all the praise when the team does well, and the criticism when it doesn’t. He added that it takes more than just the signal-caller for a team to play well — the players around him need to as well.
But when he looked at the Wolfpack, NC State checked those boxes on paper.
“Not unless they don’t show up for the game, I don’t think it makes much difference for us,” Huff said. “They’ve got a really good team. … Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of control that the quarterback has, but when you look at the team like NC State, there’s so many good pieces around the quarterback. I think whoever they put back there has the opportunity to have success if everyone plays good around them and we don’t do what we need to do on the other side.”
The Thundering Herd have an opportunity to win their second ACC contest of the season this weekend against NC State, but Huff does not look at his team has giant slayers.
Instead, he just wants them to play well.
“I don’t think of us as the Power Five team beaters,” Huff said. “We just try to play the best we can each week.”
