Head Coach: Tony Gibson enters his first season as the head coach of the Thundering Herd. He takes over following a bizarre contract standoff between Marshall and previous coach Charles Huff. Gibson was previously the defensive coordinator at NC State and also served as as the DC at West Virginia. He’s a West Virginia native and knows the state very well.
Program Outlook: Marshall is a program that has a lot of great tradition. The program has 2 FCS National Titles, but has been at the FBS level since 1997. So many great players have come from this program including Randy Moss, Chad Pennington, Byron Leftwich and Ahmad Bradshaw. Those are only a few, this program does a great job mining underrated talent and developing them. It’s a program that is accustomed to winning, they finish with a winning record far more often than not and they have put together a lot of great seasons including 9 10+ win seasons since joining FBS, impressively that includes their first 3 FBS seasons. They have momentum after their first Sun Belt championship last season.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Marshall ranks 123rd in the country returning 35% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. It wasn’t a normal coaching change and the previous coach took a lot of players with him to his new destination, so much so that they couldn’t play the bowl game, so let’s see how Gibson reloaded. Key players starts with the QB and there’s a couple options. Zion Turner comes over from Jax State and knows the system, while Syracuse transfer Carlos Del Rio-Wilson is talented. The RBs will play a key role in this offense and they have a couple promising ones in Michael Allen (UNLV) and Jo’Shon Barbie (McNeese). There are some valuable players back though, TE Toby Payne is very talented and should be a focal point of the offense. The other good news is there is experience back on the offensive line, especially on the interior. This will prove valuable for the Herd. The receivers will all come from the portal, Demarcus Lacey (Jax State) knows the offense, Ben Turner (West Liberty) is intriguing and there is Antonio Harmon (Mississippi State) who has a little experience. The defense will be led by safety Jadarius Green-McKnight who returns after a good season last year and is poised to step up even more. They also got corner Daytione Smith who played a little bit back from last year, the remainder is made up from the portal. Smith will have an experienced corner next to him in Marvae Myers-Glover (MTSU) and Boogie Trotter (Tennessee State) is an exciting player at the other safety spot. The defensive line will miss Mike Green, he was a star that will be difficult to replace. The good news is that the line will be massive KaTron Evans (Charlotte) and Tyas Martin (Jackson State) will bring 665lbs of heft on the inside, and there’s a few power conference transfers that could factor in. Paul Hutson (Campbell) will factor in on the outside. The linebackers will lack experience, probably the most experienced option is yet another Jax State import in Jibreel Al-Amin who was in the rotation last year.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Marshall will face a challenging schedule in 2025. It starts with the opener against Georgia, that’s a tough game to open the Gibson era with. It will be critical to get out of that one without losing momentum. The remaining non-conference games are definitely winnable Missouri State is entering their first FBS season, MTSU is sorting things out and their FCS foe is Eastern Kentucky, but Marshall shouldn’t take the Colonels lightly as they were in the playoffs last year. The Sun Belt schedule is tough because they drew the teams with the highest upside in Louisiana and Texas State. Marshall might face their toughest East division foes at home which could help.
Final Thoughts: There’s not a lot of teams that are more new than this Marshall team, they are basically starting over in a lot of areas. This is a team that’s tough to project, but if they reach a bowl or even finish with a winning record it would be considered a strong start for Tony Gibson. It’s a fun new era of football in the state, Gibson taking Jax State OC Rod Smith means we are going to see the Rich Rod influence on both programs in the state.
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