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November 22, 2009

Seniors helped Herd over the hump

By TOM BONE

HUNTINGTON — For Marshall University’s 15 football seniors, it must have seemed as if Saturday’s 34-31 win over Southern Methodist was a matching bookend to their careers on their home field.

Most were freshmen in the fall of 2005 when Marshall beat SMU 16-13 in overtime, in the Thundering Herd’s first game as a member of Conference USA.

Several had key roles in Saturday night’s three-point win that gave Marshall a 6-5 record (4-3 in C-USA) and a conditional shot at a postseason bowl.

• Defensive lineman Albert McClellan turned in two tackles for loss in one SMU three-and-out in the third quarter. He was also credited with a quarterback hurry in the game.

• Seniors Daniel Baldridge and Jimmy Rogers manned the right side of the offensive line that allowed the Herd to outgain the high-powered SMU attack by a margin of 475 to 331 yards.

• Kicker Craig Ratanamorn put 10 points up on the board via four extra points and two field goals. His seven kickoffs averaged 61.9 yards.

His streak of consecutive successful field goals reached 14 with a season-long 50-yarder for a 10-7 lead in the second quarter — after an ill-timed Marshall timeout, due to an expiring play clock, forced him to re-kick it.

That streak was broken late in the quarter. His 31-yard try went through the uprights, but the play was negated by a false start penalty. His next try, from 36 yards, was inches to the outside of the left goalpost.

Ratanamorn is now 28-of-28 in extra point kicks.

• Senior Ashton Hall was the leading tackler for Marshall, with three solo tackles and five assists from his strong safety position.

• Finally, Hall was in the right place on the “hands” kickoff-return team when it counted most.

With 39 seconds left, he leaped to grab the Mustangs’ onside kick attempt, maintaining possession for the Herd and allowing the crowd and his teammates to start their celebration — which continued well after the final whistle.

Head coach Mark Snyder said the six-win threshold was “huge” for his program. “It’s something we haven’t done since we got here,” he said.

Marshall’s last bowl game was a 32-14 loss to Cincinnati in 2004, in what is now the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl.

This year’s squad is not yet assured of being invited to go bowling, as Snyder cautioned in his postgame press conference.

“We’re conditionally bowl eligible,” he said. “To put it in concrete, we’ve got to go win another game. But it’ll all work out in the wash. ... Right now, it feels pretty good to be over .500.”

Marshall will travel to El Paso this weekend for a 3 p.m. Saturday game with UTEP (3-8), which lost to Rice 30-29 last Saturday.

McClellan said, “We’ve got to go out and get another win so we can be guaranteed a bowl, not just wait for somebody else to lose or somebody else to win.”

• • •

A couple of freshmen and a sophomore stole the show on offense.

True freshman wideout Aaron Dobson, who was helping South Charleston High School to a Class AAA state championship last November, caught two touchdown passes in the second half and accounted for 127 yards on four receptions.

With leading rusher Darius Marshall unable to play due to a bad ankle, redshirt freshman Martin Ward ran for 136 yards and sophomore Terrell Edwards-Maye added 113.

The two combined for 47 carries on Saturday. Coming into the game, they had run the ball a combined 55 times all season.

Snyder said, “I thought those two young tailbacks played very well tonight. That didn’t shock me. ... It’s all about experience. It’s all about touches.”

SMU coach June Jones said, “I think they had a pretty good game plan, and they executed it better than we executed our game plan.”

He said he didn’t expect massive changes even with Marshall’s leading rusher on the sidelines. In a tangential tribute to Snyder’s offensive scheme, he said, “They just had different guys running the ball.”

— Contact Tom Bone at tbone@bdtonline.com

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