 "Photo: Sholten Singer")
Brian Anderson dropped back, scrambled to his right, tripped on his feet and fell down.
That’s how a painful fourth quarter ended Sunday for Marshall in Orlando, Fla.
Now, it’s time to get back up.
The Herd won’t play UCF again this season, but the eerie post-Halloween memory of the Knights’ erasing a late 13-point fourth quarter deficit to steal a 21-20 win at Bright House Networks Stadium can always replay itself.
The Marshall players have to make sure that doesn’t happen. UCF can’t beat the Herd twice.
“It’s one that hurts pretty bad,” Anderson said. “But it’s just another situation where we have to move on and try to go get that sixth win in two weeks.”
The Herd won’t play again until Nov. 14 when Southern Miss (5-4, 3-2 Conference USA) visits Joan C. Edwards Stadium.
The break in the schedule can be looked at in two ways. On the positive, it allows Marshall to get healthy. Over the past two weeks, the Herd’s lost three offensive linemen. The entire left side of the line — guard Ryan Tillman and tackle Brandon Campbell — went out against UAB on Oct. 24. Tillman didn’t make the trip to Orlando. Campbell did but didn’t play at full strength.
Center Chad Schofield got dinged up shortly before Anderson’s game-changing fumble against the Knights. He didn’t return for the Herd’s final possession.
On the negative side of the bye, it gives Marshall an extra six days to think about, arguably, the most demoralizing loss in the Mark Snyder era.
Snyder likes the former side to that logic.
“I think it’s a really good thing,” Snyder said. “This time of the season everybody is dinged up. Everybody across the country, nobody is playing with the same 22 (players) right now.
“This is coming at a great time for us physically and, now, emotionally.”
Snyder’s Herd has yet to win after a bye week during the coach’s four-plus years in Huntington.
Last year, the bye seemed like ideal timing. Marshall was reeling after getting whipped on back-to-back weeks by West Virginia and Cincinnati by a combined score of 60-13.
“It’s good timing coming off two losses like this,” said then-Marshall starting quarterback Mark Cann. “We need to regroup a little bit and find the excitement that we had at the beginning of the season, jumping out to 3-1 like we did. Maybe we lost it a little bit, I don’t know, but we have to find it these next (two) weeks.”
The Herd never found it.
Its next game was setup to be perfect for a Marshall hangover. It traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to take on lowly UAB, who entered the contest at 1-6.
But missed kicks and questionable play-calling — including a called Darius Passmore reverse on the Herd’s 6-yard line, which resulted in a safety — gave Marshall its third consecutive loss, 23-21.
The Herd won the next week versus Houston, but lost its last four to finish 4-8.
This time, Marshall (5-4, 3-2) has three games left to win one for bowl eligibility.
“I think it will be a good two weeks to just kind of reflect on everything that we’ve done and kind of move on and get healed,” said senior kicker Craig Ratanamorn. “We’ll be ready for our next opponent.”
SUB-VARSITY GAME: No Marshall game this week got you having football withdrawal? No worries. The pigskin will still be thrown around at the Joan.
Thursday, the Herd will host Hargrave Military Academy in a sub-varsity game at 3 p.m. The game is open to the public.
Andrew Ramspacher can be contacted at ramspacher@marshall.edu.
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