Marshall optimistic ahead of clash at No. 3 Ohio State

Marshall coach Charles Huff was in a good mood and optimistic during his session with the media Monday as the Thundering Herd prepared to face No. 3 Ohio State on Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.He first likened the situation to one of his favorite movies, “Moneyball,” where a frugal major league team in the early 2000s turned to analytics and bargain-basement players in an attempt to compete with the big spenders.”It’s the Yankees vs. Oakland Athletics, their payroll and where we are,” he joked.Obviously, Marshall (1-1) would play the role of the underdog A’s, but Huff has been there before and succeeded. In 2022, his Thundering Herd defeated No. 8 Notre Dame on the road and the next season beat Virginia Tech.”No doubt that Ohio State’s a good football team,” he said. “They’re well-coached. They’ve got really good players, but we’ve got good players as well.”We’ve got a good plan coming up. It’s going to take our best and that’s what you want. It’s going to take our collective best, our individual best. We don’t have to be superstars. This is not David and Goliath. This is not, you know, high school vs. the pros. This is a really good team vs. a really good team, and when you have that, the margin for error is small.”The good news for Marshall is that after a 31-14 loss at Virginia Tech on Sept. 7, it had an open week to get ready for the Buckeyes (2-0). The bad news is Ohio State was also idle last weekend after its 56-0 thrashing of Western Michigan on Sept. 7.Ohio State coach Ryan Day took to calling the time between games an “improvement week.””The idea was to get better. I think we did do that last week,” Day said. “We had three hard, physical days out there, and got a chance to step away for a couple days and watch some games on Saturday and we asked everybody to do that, get some rest. It gives you a good perspective. You get the chance to see some games, see some situational things to learn from, get to see some other teams out there just watching the games.”

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