25 Questions that Thunder

What is their body of work?

For this year (as we find so often early in the season) there is a huge question mark here. They beat Southern Illinois in Huntington by 3 points, but SIU is the #8 FCS team and consistently compete with MAC teams, so it is unclear what lesson to draw from that. And a good Virginia Tech team drilled them last week, but that could easily have happened to the Falcons, too.

The Herd was 4-8 last season and last had a winning season in 2003. They have not had a winning season as a member of C-USA.

What was their best result last season or this season?

They did have a win at Southern Mississippi, who went 7-6 and played in a bowl game. They also played a very good Tulsa team very close.

What was their worst result last season?

They were smoked by Central Florida in Huntington.

What was the turnover margin?

They were -4 last year and are -1 so far this year. (-4 is not dreadful, especially for a team that went 4-8).

Offense:

How is their QB play?

Their QB is Jr. Brian Anderson. His numbers are pretty solid, with 62% completion, a 3-1 ratio and 6.4 yards per attempt. The QB rating for him is 128 (Sheehan is 128, for reference). Although a junior, he was only played six games last year, and threw 39 passes.

What was their yard per play?

Last year's Marshall attack was not great. They averaged only 20 points per game and had 5.1 yards per play. (BG was 27/5.3). So far this year, they are at 4.8 yards per play.

Can they run the ball?

Last season, they were decent with 4 yards per carry. This year, they are starting off at 3.1, and only made 2.0 yards per carry against SIU. However, Darius Marshall, who had 1,000 yards last year is back, and did not play against SIU, but topped 100 yards against VA Tech.

Do they pass the ball?

See above as it relates to Anderson, who does appear to be a nice step up from last year's QB. They had a good receiver graduate and as mentioned in the presser, look to TE Cody Slate a lot. Chuck Walker also had 10 catches against SIU.

How is their run/pass balance.

To date, they have 61 rushes and 69 passes. Last season, they ran the ball 56% of the time but may not have had confidence in their QB.

Do they convert on 3rd Down.

So far they are at about 36% for the year, which is only OK, but it is hard to tease that out based on the competition so far.

Do they score in the red zone?

So far this is not especially good, at 3.4 points per trip. They have been completely shut out on 2 of 7 trips, once with a fumble and once on downs.

Do they protect the quarterback?

Three sacks in two games is pretty good this season, especially as they pass more. Two of them were by SIU.

Last year, this offense was pretty average, and they have been pretty average against this year. They appear to have an upgrade at QB, and their numbers are slightly tainted by missing their RB for the first game. Still, there is no reason to think at this point that this is an offensive juggernaut.

Defense:

Topline: Scoring and yards per play.

They gave up 28 points per game and about 5.4 yards per play last year, which is on the low side of average for a defense. This season, they are giving up 40 PPG and 6.6 yards per play which is obviously a little farther from average. They have the VA Tech game in there, of course, and gave up 28 and 5.4 to SIU.

Do they defend the run effectively?

This is one of those wait and see deals. They gave up 3.8 yards a carry to SIU and 8.4 yards per carry to VaTech.

Could they be passed on?

Last year, this was a pretty big weakness, as the Herd allowed 7.2 yards per passing attempt, which is pretty poor. The Salukis picked up 5.4 yards a pass, which indicates they took the short stuff Marshall was giving them. VaTech only passed 19 times though they gained 161 on those attempts.

Did they get off the field on 3rd down?

They are only at 48% this year, which is not good. This was one of the keys to SIU scoring on them.

Do they defend in the red zone?

This year they have two outright red zone stops in 9 attempts (both against VaTech), but six touchdowns. 4.3 points per red zone trip is decent for a defense.

Do they pressure the QB?

They have five sacks in their first two games which is pretty good, along with 10 hurries, also a good number. Albert McClellan had three hurries against VaTech. Note, finally, that they sacked VaTech 3 times and the Hokies only passed 19 times.

Special Teams:

Punting?

Net punting this year is about 31 yards per attempt. Two are inside the 20, which might effect it but they seem to give up a lot of returns and gave up at TD to VaTech.

Punt Return?

They have a new returner and he hasn't shown too much yet.

Placekicking?

This year, their kicker has hit two short FGs. Last year he was 7-11, 1-2 over 40 and a long of 50, which means he was 6-9 inside 40, which is OK but not great.

Kickoff?

Very serviceable. Typical start on the 26 yard line and two touchbacks.

Kickoff Return?

This does not appear to be a strong point, at 19 yards per game.

Miscellaneous: Overall atmospherics and intangibles.

Well, theoretically, Marshall is hard to beat at home, but as I noted in an earlier post this week, they have not been good their lately.

In a lot of ways, we don't know what we are getting, beyond a team with a string of losing records. Lots of starters were back from last year's team, but that isn't always a good thing.

Marshall's coach is on the hot seat, and has to be looking for a return to a bowl to at least relieve the pressure. To do that, a win against BG is pretty essential.

So far, I think the Falcons are exceeding our expectations. To finish the job and get a road win here would do a lot for our confidence.