Marshall At Memphis ESPN 2 Who will win!

Marshall At Memphis ESPN 2

I would be remiss if I did not mention Taylor Bradford and the tragedy that unfolded in the last several days. My prayers go out to everyone involved especially his family, the death of such a young man no matter what the circumstance is unfortunate.

There will be stickers with Bradford's number 93 printed on them handed out around the stadium and available in First Tennessee Tiger Town. In addition, there will be a giant card located in Tiger Town for fans to sign that will presented to Bradford's family

When it comes to the game the line jumped from 1.5 to up and over 3 in some places and one look at consensus will tell you why.

Consensus
Memphis 71%
Under 63%

This is a go against for me 90% of the time, but a consensus does not always mean that team is going to lose (see Patriots last night) the question is how is the team dealing with the death of a teammate. Take a look at some of the quotes from the head coach.

GET THE BEST LINE HERE:



Talk about tomorrow's game and the thought process that went into continuing it.Well I talked to them. I really want our team to be a part of this. I told them this isn't a situation where I make every decision for them. I think they need to make it. That's part of getting through. They know that we have to move on. You can't just stop. They understand that. I think it's important that they talk and they make decisions. They made the decision. I talked to them this morning. (Athletic Director) R.C. (Johnson) and I talked. We met about the game, and we talked to a lot of the players. They were in favor of playing the game.
At this time, they say they need a little bit of time. We're going to stay together. We're going to try to be together tonight. We probably won't get anything done today football wise. We're going to take today and do what we have to do. Then tomorrow morning we'll start working on football. It won't be a practice, but we'll have a walk-through tomorrow morning and then start back with film. We don't play until 7 o'clock so we have some time tomorrow to try and catch up.

Are there any big plans before the game?Yeah. (Our) players had a page and a half of ways--I wanted them to have ways of how you honor one of your guys. They had some really good stuff. I know we're going to try and get something to put on our helmets. But we wanted to do something. They brought up a million different things, some really good stuff--trying to maybe after this season doing something to raise some money for his parents, or for a scholarship fund or an award named after him for the spring game. They had a page and a half of ways we could honor one of our guys. They're really, really good kids.
Too things stuck out to me, the team wants to stay together during this tragedy, for each other, for the family, for the team. This strikes me as a positive when it comes to tonight and when asked how to pay tribute to Bradford and they had countless ways to do and as a team they all wanted to play. I am not buying the tired from playing in a bunch of games in a limited time frame because they VOTED to play tonight, they WANT to play tonight’s game.

MEMPHIS -1.5 first half
MEMPHIS -3 GAME

The herd cannot stop this team on the rush and are pathetic con the road. They are 2-11 ATS in the last 13 road games and average giving up 6.0 yards per carry. The defense is even better for Memphis when it comes to pure numbers.

Memphis is 9-2 ATS in C-USA home lid-lifters, averaging 412 yards of total offense. The defense has offered little help giving up 32 points a game and 414 YPG. Of course that seems like a bargain compared to Marshall, who has rolled over in allowing 41.7 PPG and 447 YPG. It is far from a thundering herd for Marshall, who is10-26-1 ATS mark on the conference road.

When Marshall team played as a Road team - Vs Division Opponent - Coming off 1 ATS lost Marshall is 3-7 ATS

When Memphis team played as a Home team - After a non conference game - Coming off a Loss over Sun Belt opponent they are 15-9 ATS

Marshall is 1-8 ATS as a road underdog and Memphis is 23-10 ATS off a loss by 6 points or less.
After the last game against Cincinnati even Marshall’s head coach new they were in trouble. "There were a few gutsy individual performances out there," Marshall coach Mark Snyder said. "But as a whole, I think we're a very poorly coached football team right now." To be fair the Herd has four starters gone on defense, however it has been turnovers and penalties that have placed the defense in the hole and the false starts and holding penalties stalling the offense.
Even worse for the Thundering Herd is the fact they’ve failed to cover the spread in eight of their last nine road games, all of which came as underdogs. In C-USA play, they’ve gone just 2-6 ATS off campus, with the average loss coming by 20 PPG and the average win coming by just 4 PPG. The Marshall run defense has been porous. Incredibly, they have already allowed 1052 yards on the ground this season. Therefore, the Memphis RB tandem of T.J. Pitts and Joseph Doss should have a productive evening.

The home side has won and covered in each of the two previous meetings between the schools, with the average win coming by 19 points. Last year, Memphis posted a season high 469 total yards, but lost 41-27 due to four costly turnovers, which resulted in 14 Marshall points.
Penalties and turnovers are against this team and momentum is too. Revenge and emotion will win out in this one.

FINAL: Memphis 44 Marshall 17