MAC Football

MAC Basketball

The View: Coach Bob Pruett used his limited scholarships and found key players at targeted positions to pull out a very good class despite recent NCAA sanctions to cut Marshall by five scholarships. Marshall signed 11 players from seven different states, but the headliner has to be "Tank" Tunstalle. He should be a legend for Marshall before this fall since he was widely regarded as the state’s best college prospect and turned down West Virginia to play in Huntington. He is a big back with 4.5 speed and ran for more than 4,000 yards in his career. My favorite player from this class is Jimmy Skinner from Chillicothe, Ohio. A good player on a bad team, he was receiving a lot of attention going into his senior year but seemed to fall of the big boy’s radar screens as his senior year progressed. Charles Hall, Ivan Clark & Chris Royal all run in the 4.4 range and each turned down offers from ACC, Big East, C-USA & SEC schools to play for Marshall. Dane Holland and Dennis Thornton each have the skills to play OLB or safety positions. Baisden & Cook are good line prospects who should see playing time in a year or two. Adam Black is a guy to keep your eye on since he fits Marshall’s mold of big QBs with big arms. Although he was not highly recruited, this late bloomer threw for more than 2,400 yards as a senior and 30 TDs.

Analysis: Had this been a full 15 or 16-man class with the same type of talent across the board as these eleven, and Marshall would have been ranked in my top four. Since my rankings are based off of the number of impact players coming into a program, small recruiting classes usually rank a little lower with me. It’s safe to say though that Pruett & Company did quite well with these new arrivals and hit their needs with quality talent. Overall I rate this class as VERY GOOD compared to other MAC schools and most of these players had other attractive offers from more limelight conferences. Overall, Marshall got QB help, speed, and play makers. It should be interesting to see down the line how these scholarship reductions will take effect at this championship program over the next few years.