The Conference USA Championship Football Game at Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington, West Virginia Friday Night was about as 2020 as you could expect.
Yes, we are using 2020 as an adjective now, deal with it.
The Marshall Thundering Herd played host in the most gracious of manners, letting their Western Divison rivals take a 3-0 lead with 1:45 left in the first quarter with no intention of ever giving it back. Not for lack of trying on Marshall’s part obviously, but the Blazers’ defense did a number on the Herd’s usually dynamic offense, limiting them to just 80 yards in the first half and 268 total yards.
Freshman quarterback Grant Wells, coming off a five-interception loss to Rice two weeks ago looked a little lost – he didn’t throw a complete pass the entire first half, going 0-10. Luckily, Marshall’s defense limited UAB’s damage to just nine points in the first 30 minutes of football. The 9-0 halftime score made this the lowest-scoring first half in C-USA Championship Game history. The previous low was a 10-0 lead that UCF held over SMU at the half in 2010.
First half highlights included dominating line play by the Blazers, UAB Tight End Hayden Pittman’s first-ever career touchdown, a 19-yard grab from quarterback Tyler Johnston to put the Blazers up 9-0, and an appearance by Marshall tight end Xavier Gaines at quarterback. Gaines is a former 4-star dual-threat QB out of Frostproof, Florida. Johnston finished the game 12-22 for 252 yards and two touchdowns.
Marshall came out the second half swinging after what we can only assume was one heck of a halftime speech from Head Coach Doc Holliday. Wells started connecting with receivers, running backs Brenden Knox and Sheldon Evans were incorporated more and the momentum shifted off a big fumble recovery by Marshall linebacker Eli Neal. Wells was able to find senior wide receiver Artie Henry for a 7-yard touchdown, bringing the Herd within two.
But UAB’s offensive weapons were too much for the Herd to handle – wide receiver Trea Shropshire finished the game with five huge catches for a total of 180 yards and a touchdown, averaging 36 yards per catch, a new C-USA Championship game record. Senior running back Spencer Brown carried the ball 30 times for the Blazers for a total of 149 yards, putting him over 4,000 career rushing yards and earning him player of the game honors
“We liked our matchup with Shropshire and Tyler Johnson throws the deep ball as good as anybody – Shrop was just making plays,” said UAB Head Coach Bill Clark post-game. “We probably should have had two MVP’s – him (Shropshire), Spencer (Brown), maybe three and the defense.”
Kicker Matt Quinn also deserves some of the MVP love – the freshman’s foot went 3-3 from 30 yards, 42 yards and 48 yards. And all with first-time long snapper Cole Kizziah, in to replace Jacob Fuqua who tested positive for Covid before the game. The 48-yarder was the longest in Conference USA Championship history – the previous long was 46 by Marshall’s Justin Haig in 2014.
UAB’s football program is no stranger to adversity, something Clark used to his advantage during this unprecedented season.
“I think that our whole program was built on adversity and faith and believing in each other,” said Clark. “That’s something I think that when we made the decision last week, we had 40 guys or whatever it was, 40 scholarship players at the start of that week that we were going to play Rice and from then on it was just no looking back – let’s just go win this championship.”
Clark stood by the program when it was eliminated in 2014. He helped resurrect it in 2015. And he has led the team to two Conference USA Championships in the last three years and be the first school to do so on the road. Safe to say, he is the guy.
“It means a lot, he took a chance on me from the beginning coming out of high school so I owe a lot of where I am now to him,” admitted Brown. “He’s just a special man, that’s all I can say about him.”
UAB is officially in the business of winning championships.
