Knights Quest to Ruin Homecoming

Homecoming is defined as an annual event held by a college, university, or high school for visiting alumni. In football sense, teams desperately want to show off and win on their homecoming weekend, and usually they schedule someone who they are pretty confident they can beat, i.e. cupcakes.

UCF is the scheduled opponent for Marshall’s homecoming this Saturday and they hope to avoid playing the role of cupcakes and ruin the historic team from West Virginia’s weekend. Why not, this same UCF team ruined Knights fans homecoming just last weekend with a 17-6 loss to Southern Miss.

“We’re just treating this game as the next big game because it is the next game on the schedule,” said Knights redshirt freshman running back Ronnie Weaver. “I didn’t know it was homecoming until coach said it was yesterday. It will be a great feeling to knock off someone that’s doing better than our record. It will always be better to spoil somebody else’s season when yours isn’t going the way you’d hoped.”

Junior defensive tackle Torrell Troup wants to win as bad as anyone, but he refused to call the Marshall-UCF series a rivalry.

“I don’t know if you can say it’s a rivalry but we treat every game as a big game so we’re going to be pumped and ready to play and they’re going to be pumped and ready to play too, so it’s going to be a big game,” Troup said.

Coach O’Leary believes that the Thundering Herd are rivals of UCF and made reference to the last time that the team traveled to Huntington on Homecoming weekend.

"If I had to pick a rival in our division, it would be Marshall,” O’Leary said. “We have played them three times and gone up there also. Last time we went up there it was another Homecoming deal, and we are looking forward to going back up there again. That is where (Michael) Torres went down and made the field goal then took his helmet off and got us a penalty and I got caught on T.V. saying something that I shouldn't have."

O’Leary said that his team is in surprisingly good spirits despite their record and they’re looking forward to heading up to Huntington this weekend.

“I know the kids are looking forward to going up there and playing, even our Florida kids,” O’Leary explained. “I don’t know what the weather will be, but I’m sure it will be in the 30’s, I’ll let you know how happy they are when we get there. They like going up to Marshall, why? I don’t know. I have no idea.”

It will obviously take a lot more than will and excitement for the Knights to pull off the upset this weekend. Marshall has a fine running back named Darius Marshall that the Knights are fully aware of.

“He’s a very quick kid and he knows how to hit the holes,” said Knights mammoth defensive tackle Torrell Troup. “He’ll make that first person miss and he isn’t scared to cut it back. He’s got some great blockers so he’ll pretty much do whatever he wants to.”

The Knights will also have to contend with an elite receiver for the second consecutive week in Darius Passmore. Passmore averages nearly 95 receiving yards per game and has scored six touchdowns.

"They have a couple of good receivers in (Darius) Passmore, and (Cody) Slate,” O’Leary explained. “They also have some running backs playing well that are good quick footed guys. They threaten you vertically and horizontally in the passing game. Our defense will have their work cut out for them. We just cannot leave them out there the whole game."

Passmore is also a dual threat as he often lines up under center and runs the football, a la the Miami Dolphins “wildcat” formation. Coach O’Leary wasn’t all that impressed—

“They put him at quarterback, that’s real inventive. It’s like Tulsa, remember what Tulsa did with number two. They put number two at QB and they run sweeps and all that stuff and Passmore’s a good athlete, he can run. They run that a couple times a game.

“They know when he’s in there at quarterback and what they try to do. He’s run the ball all the time, so this week what should you expect, pass.”

Although Torrell Troup hadn’t seen much on Marshall, he is pretty confident that the coaching staff will have the team prepared.

“I know our defensive coaches will have us ready to play against whatever they come out with,” Troup said.

At 2-7, the pressure’s almost completely off the defending Conference USA champs. They now have an opportunity to ruin Marshall’s season and what a better time to ruin it than Homecoming.