Topic: Parthenon: Herd can't overlook Wildcats

[ZackUSAF82]

One lesson the Marshall Thundering Herd football team should know is not to overlook a Football Championship Subdivision opponent.

It was a decade ago when Marshall jumped from the Division I-AA Southern Conference to the Mid-American Conference, where the team continued to accumulate wins on its way to being the winningest team of the '90s.

Marshall definitely doesn't have a "gimme" Saturday when it hosts the New Hampshire Wildcats of the Colonial Athletic Association.

Now in his ninth season with the Wildcats, New Hampshire head coach Sean McDonnell understands the importance of this game for his team going up against a Conference USA opponent.

"Obviously they were a tremendous I-AA program that moved on," McDonnell said during Monday's CAA teleconference. "This is a big, big challenge for our football program. One of the toughest we've had in a long time."

It isn't as if the Wildcats are strangers to big-time opponents. In their opening game last season, the Wildcats took it to another set of Wildcats - the Northwestern Wildcats of the Big Ten - to the tune of a lopsided 34-17 margin.

The Herd also is familiar with foes from the CAA as teams from the conference have been rounding out Marshall's schedule the past few years. In 2006, Hofstra came into Joan C. Edwards Stadium a week after Marshall lost to West Virginia and grabbed an early 14-0 lead before falling to the Herd with a 54-31 victory.

Link: http://media.www.marshallparthenon.com/media/storage/paper534/news/2007/09/13/Sports/Herd-Cant.Overlook.Wildcats-2966457.shtml