From: pdunn@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Patrick L Dunn)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
Subject: Reflections on I-AA Championship--The immensity of Marshall's 
          accomplishment.
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:05:35 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University

The game that was played on Saturday between Marshall and Youngstown St. will
likely be soon discounted by all who are not I-AA football fans and true
college football fanatics.  And that is sad, because it was truly a classic for
the ages, and epitomized everything that you could hope to see in a college
football game, let alone a championship.

For those who didn't see the game, and you really missed something if you
didn't watch it, here are the highlights:

1. Marshall led 28-0 midway through the third quarter; Youngstown St. staged a
tremendous comeback to tie the score with about 3:00 to go in the game.

2. Marshall had two injuries to key defensive players in the third, which
contributed greatly to Youngstown's comeback.

3. Marshall's offense, which had been sputtering, took the ball down the field
on a 14-play, 84-yd drive.

4.  During the drive, one of the injured Marshall players, who had been carried
off on a stretcher, returned from the hospital (How's that for Hollywood? #1).

5. With 14 seconds, Marshall's backup placekicker, Willy Merrick, comes on the
field.  How's that for Hollywood? #2: His brother, David, was the regular
Marshall place kicker; however, he had been suspended from the team for
sleeping through a practice.  Willy, recruited from the Marshall soccer team,
had never kicked a field goal before in a game in his career--not even in high
school.  After a timeout by each side, Willy puts it straight through from 22
yards.  Score: Marshall 31, YSU 28.

6. After the kickoff, YSU throws an interception to WR/KR and double-duty
pulling defensive back Troy Brown.  He comes down the sidelines, and runs out
he clock.  Marshall wins.

This was the day that Marshall University, Huntington, and the State of West
Virginia realized what 22 years ago seemed impossible, even laughable--a
national Championship in football.

For those unfamiliar with Marshall football,
this is a program that had 19 straight losing seasons ending in 1983; was
expelled from teh Mid American Conference in '68 for cheating; had a 27-game
non-winning streak; played in a stadium that had been condemned as unsafe in
1962, and lost all but about a half-dozen of its football team,
along with the coaching staff, athletic diretor, and many loyal supporters in a
1970 plane crash--a young team that had went 3-6, losing 3 of those games by
a total of about ten points, and would likely have turned the program around
had they lived.

At a time when schools were scrapping football programs for far more trivial
reasons, Marshall decided to come back, against all logic and common sense.
The next year Marshall played 10 games against Division I schools with a
dispensation from the NCAA allowing freshmen to play, and filling out the rest
of the team with student walk-ons and athletes from other sports who still had
some eligibility left.  They had to borrow equipment from high schools just to
get through the season--everything was lost in the crash, and there was no
revenue to put it back.  Miraculously, that team won two games.

But the losing continued, and Marshall football remained synonomous with losing
through 1983.  Then, things turned around.  Winning seasons started in 1984,
and continue through today.

Marshall football now has a beautiful new stadium, probably the finest in I-AA.
Coaches no longer leave in disgrace, but are hired away to the "big wars."  And
there is even talk of expanding the stadium from 30,000 seats to 55,000 seats
and moving to I-A.  Most would say that is amazingly far fetched, but
considering where this team had to come from, I wouldn't be so hasty.
I saw things in the last 22 years that most people would have laughed at as 
well.  I wouldn't hold it past them.

No University, no Community, no football program has ever had to overcome the
odds and the situation that marshall has, and I pray that none ever have to
again.  But they did it.  End of story.  The sky is the limit for marshall
football in the future.

I could never be prouder of anyone or anything than to sit here and say today
that I am a graduate of  Marshall University.  God bless everyone who has
worked for 22 years and more to make the impossible dream come true.

PDunn
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college