Granted Ohio may have some extra motivation not ever winning a Bowl game before, but I still do not care. This defense of Marshall's is under rated and they have faced a stronger opponent than Ohio has in terms of the offenses they have faced. The weakness of Ohio's defense which is the running defense is the strength of the Marshall running game as they get a healthy Darius Marshall back. Marshall had solid games against some of the steady run defenses. During a four-week stretch, he went for 109, 186, 203, 141 against teams like Virginia Tech and East Carolina.
On the other side of the ball Ohio has been one of my favorite teams to bet on and Frank Solich is a solid coach that gets the most out of his players, but finally the best won't be good enough. They came off a heart breaking loss to Central Mich in the MAC title game and I think they won't be up for this one as much despite wanting the schools first ever bowl win. Marshall has been here before and I just have too much respect for conference USA. These two have faced each other many times in the past as Marshall used to be a member of Conference USA.
These two teams are pretty evenly matched and in that situation I like to bet on the stronger conference opponent. These two had one similar game and that was Bowling Green. Marshall was -47 yards to Bowling Green but won the game 17-10 while Ohio was -55 yards and won 44-37 and -55 yards. Both teams won, but you could tell that Ohio's defense really is on another level compared to Marshall. Darius Marshall ran for 186 yards in that game and I think he'll have a similar game here on Saturday. Often times I have seen Ohio's defensive line break against good running teams.
Marshall's defense has played three similar opponents in terms of offensive rankings. The rest of the teams they have faced all have better offensive rankings. While they went 1-2 straight up in those games they were all close games. They L to UCF 20-21, (UCF better defense than OHIO), Won @ Tulane 31-10, and lost at East Carolina 17-21 who also have a better defense than Ohio.
