MAC Football

MAC Basketball

Overview:                   Marshall welcomes 21 new members to their program with another talented group of recruits built with speed.  Marshall has always coveted speed and certainly added more with this class.  Marshall signed a tremendous group of receivers and many of the player signed in this class had BCS school offers, and throughout the recruiting period, Marshall was going head-to-head with some of the nation’s top programs for talent.  Two wide-outs lead this talented class, Jermaine Filer, the 5^th rated player in the Tampa area and a top-100 receiver nationally, and multi-talented ‘athlete’ Marcus Fitzgerald, the younger brother of Pitt Panther receiver and Heisman finalist, Larry Fitzgerald.  In all, Marshall brought in five players who may end up at WR.  Other areas that Marshall concentrated on were TE, the defensive line and a quality kicker.

Highlights:

• Marshall went far and wide to find their talent.  Listed above, Filer is from Tampa while Fitzgerald is from Minnesota.  But other quality players include TE/DE Matt Parkhurst, a tremendous talent from Philadelphia who picked Marshall over Kentucky & Toledo; Demone Goins, a big WR from Mississippi, Emmanuel Spann, a speedy WR from Georgia & Floyrd Wright, a DT from California.
• Marshall has always recruited in states that other MAC schools do not, but this year the Herd found talented players in Virginia (3), North Carolina (4), Florida (4), Kentucky (2), Mississippi (1), Minnesota (1), and only two from their home state of West Virginia.
• Marshall’s lone offensive line prospect is a home grown West Virginian – Doug Legursky, who won the Hunt award as the state’s top lineman.  Marshall does have one transfer OL prospect not listed below who will eligible this year, Zac Elcess, from Miami (O).
• Three talented DE prospects who may contribute right away are Jeff Bush, Blake Merritt and Bilal El-Amin.  All three are in the 6-4 240-pound range with reported 4.7/40 speed.  James Houston is a quality athlete brought in who finished 3^rd for North Carolina’s Mr. Football prep award. 

Final Thoughts:

This is the final season for the Herd in the MAC so most of these players will be going against Conference USA competition during their careers.  Marshall has always put a premium on speed and this class certainly has it.  Marshall has gone after higher talent year after year since coming back in the MAC in 1997 and this class certainly is as good, if not better, than any Marshall class I have seen in that time.  This class rates as OUTSTANDING compared to the other MAC programs and while I do not do any sort of analysis for other conferences, I have to think that this class rates on the highest tier of C-USA.  This class will help Marshall make one final championship run in their last year in the MAC should certainly help them dominate the talent depleted C-USA beginning in 2005.