{"id":4019,"date":"2025-08-21T22:06:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T02:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/?p=4019"},"modified":"2025-08-24T18:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T22:53:08","slug":"thundering-herd-remain-focused-ahead-of-no-5-georgia-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/2025\/08\/21\/thundering-herd-remain-focused-ahead-of-no-5-georgia-matchup\/","title":{"rendered":"Thundering Herd Remains Focused Ahead of No. 5 Georgia Matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Marshall Football Preview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By Owen James, FM88 Sports<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Aug. 21, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 With the season opener just days away, Marshall Head Coach Tony Gibson and his players say the focus is on themselves and not their opponent, the No. 5 ranked Georgia Bulldogs.<\/p>\n<p>According to Gibson, the rebuilt Herd roster is searching for an identity after mass departures at the conclusion of last season. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to establish who we are as a football team \u2026 our identity on offense, defense, special teams.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gibson also sees the upcoming matchup as an opportunity for his players to refine their game against some of the stiffest competition college football has to offer. \u201cA lot of these kids think that they can play at the Power Four level and they\u2019re going to get their opportunity to go play against one of the best teams in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Offensive lineman Shunmarkus Adams, who transferred to Marshall last season and played in 13 games for the Herd, reiterated that the team was focusing on themselves above all else. \u201cWe\u2019re making sure we\u2019re getting good looks from the scouts and going hard in practice,\u201d Adams said. \u201cOf course, Georgia\u2019s on our mind, but we\u2019re just trying to put our best foot forward on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Defensive back Darryl Sweeting, who transferred to Marshall this offseason, expressed confidence going into the opener. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go in there and win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Defensive lineman Braydin Ward, who was a key anchor in the Herd\u2019s Sun Belt Championship run last season, echoed that optimism. \u201cWe\u2019re going to show out in Georgia,\u201d Ward said.<\/p>\n<p>The clash is scheduled for Aug. 30, a week from Saturday, in Sanford Stadium in Athens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marshall Football Preview By Owen James, FM88 Sports Aug. 21, 2025 HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 With the season opener just days away, Marshall Head Coach Tony Gibson and his players say the focus is on themselves and not their opponent, the No. 5 ranked Georgia Bulldogs. According to Gibson, the rebuilt Herd roster is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1299,1295,115,1298,100,457,1294,1293,392,69,187,155,28,138,1296,251,156,1297,236,426,23,212,186,419,51,96],"class_list":["post-4019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wmul-sports","tag-braydin-ward","tag-bulldog-football","tag-college-radio","tag-darryl-sweeting","tag-fm88-sports","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-georgia-football","tag-georgia-university","tag-herd-football","tag-huntington-wv","tag-joan-c-edwards-stadium","tag-marshall-football","tag-marshall-university","tag-marshall-university-athletics","tag-sanford-stadium","tag-sbc","tag-sbc-football","tag-shunmarkus-adams","tag-sun-belt-conference","tag-sun-belt-conference-football","tag-thundering-herd","tag-thundering-herd-athletics","tag-thundering-herd-football","tag-tony-gibson","tag-wmul","tag-wv"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4019"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4023,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019\/revisions\/4023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}