Marshall coach Charles Huff: ‘That’s a real ACC, Power 5 football team’
Shortly after NC State beat Marshall 48-41 Saturday afternoon at Carter-Finley Stadium, Thundering Herd coach Charles Huff was blunt about his team’s performance against the Wolfpack.
Although Marshall forced three NC State turnovers, the team clad in green and white committed six giveaways of their own. The Wolfpack intercepted Herd quarterback Cam Fancher once, while the red and white forced three fumbles.
“That’s a real ACC, Power Five football team,” Huff told reporters after the game. “We made way too many mistakes to beat that caliber of team — can’t do it.”
The Thundering Herd entered the contest undefeated, and it owned a win over Virginia Tech from two weeks ago. But Marshall’s mistakes from earlier this season came back to haunt the Thundering Herd in Raleigh.
Marshall conceded 11 explosive plays to NC State — six passing and five rushing — and the turnovers were costly. Both of those were things that Huff said his team was able to skate by other teams with — either because his team had the better talent or the ball bounced their way.
But it didn’t happen against NC State.
“He turned the ball over too much,” Huff said. “I thought he made some plays. I thought he kept battling. I thought he kept us in it. But you can’t have that many penalties, turnovers, sacks, balls loose.”
The Wolfpack sacked Fancher six times, led by defensive linemen Brandon Cleveland and Davin Vann, who recorded 1.5 sacks each in the win.
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While the Thundering Herd kept the game close, and held a lead at halftime, Huff wasn’t taking any moral victories from the contest. He thought his team was good enough to win the contest, even though it fell short of that against the Wolfpack.
“We got on the plane yesterday to come win the game,” Huff said. “We didn’t come down to play hard, we didn’t come down to make it close. We came down here to win the game. We made some opportunities … but way too many missed opportunities as the game went on. Obviously as you watched the game, they’re Power Five, so they wore us down a little bit.”
Huff said NC State’s depth was able to surpass Marshall’s, but he also added that his team made too many errors when it had chances to put the Wolfpack away.
And that ultimately cost the Thundering Herd the game.
“I don’t think you can make these kinds of mistakes and play good football teams,” Huff said. “That’s the area we’ve got to learn. We’ve been lucky enough it hadn’t cost us [until Saturday.]”
