The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Today's Sports Front

October 11, 2011

Like Herd, Owls have one of top ends in C-USA

By Gary Fauber Assistant Sports Editor

To this point, Marshall and Rice have only one common opponent. That would be Southern Miss, which clobbered Rice 48-24 Oct. 1.

Three weeks earlier, Marshall surprised Southern Miss 26-20.

That certainly has the attention of Owls coach David Bailiff.

“They’ve played a very challenging schedule,” Bailiff said. “They beat Southern Miss, who we struggled against, and we’re going to have to bring an ‘A’ game there. ... They’re a good football team and they’re at home. We have to go in there and start fast.”

The Thundering Herd (2-4, 1-1 Conference USA) will host the Owls (2-3, 1-1) at 3 p.m. Saturday. The game will not be televised.

The play of Vinny Curry against Southern Miss especially stood out to Bailiff. Curry, the preseason Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year, had three sacks and had a tackle for a safety.

Curry, of course, is one of the top defenders in the league. He leads C-USA with six sacks and is second with 13 tackles for loss.

“He’s as talented a kid as you’re going see,” Bailiff said. “That’s one where we have to, through reps and hard work, we just got to get to where we can rely on our fundamentals and technique.

“There’s times where even great offensive linemen, if they don’t use the exact type of footwork, good things don’t happen. We just have to continue to get reps and get better.”

But the Owls have one of the better defensive ends, as well. Senior Scott Solomon is fourth with four sacks and sixth with seven tackles for loss.

Rice designed a series of packages to maximize Solomon’s ability to be effective on every play. It worked last week in a 28-6 win over Memphis, in which the Owls had five sacks and 10 tackles for loss and got plenty of pressure on Tigers quarterback Taylor Reed.

“Earlier in the year they were just sliding protections to him, and this makes it to where we can move him around to where he’s a right-end, a left-end, a three-technique or the nose guard, and try to attack protections in a different way,” Bailiff said. “I thought it was a very good move for us to create that personnel package.”

— E-mail: gfauber@

register-herald.com

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