How it ended: Snyder's resignation

It started with an epic miscommunication and ended with a titanic loss. These were the trying times of Mark Snyder’s career:

2005: On Sept. 1, the Snyder era officially began with a Marshall 36-24 win over William & Mary.

Some would say it was all downhill from there.

The Herd’s next game seemed to foreshadow the rest of Snyder’s career. Trailing Big 12-foe Kansas State 21-19 late in the fourth quarter before a then-record crowd at the Joan, the Herd marched to the Kansas State 21-yard line with nine seconds remaining.

It seemed like the ideal situation to call timeout and bring on placekicker Ian O'Connor to boot the game-winner. Instead, the only thing that got booted was the Herd’s chance to win.

“Marshall quarterback Jimmy Skinner looked to the sidelines for the play call, but could not understand it,” wrote former Parthenon staffer Grant Traylor. “He then called the play he thought he received — a pass — which was supposed to be a run into the middle of the field to set up a field goal.”

That pass was intercepted by the Wildcats’ Justin McKinney.

“There was a lot of pandemonium on the sideline and Jimmy had some confusion on the play,” Snyder said. “It’s a rookie head coach mistake. If I ever do it again, I will call a timeout and kick it on third down.”

The Herd lost six of its next nine games, including its final three, to finish 4-7 — it’s worst record since 1983.

2006: The stars  — literally — seemed aligned for Snyder’s second season. Hollywood’s Matthew McConaughey and Kate Mara, among others, headlined the film “We Are … Marshall,” set to debut at season’s end.

Unfortunately, the flick was the only thing on campus that generated any buzz.
A 1-5 start turned into a 5-7 finish.

With bowl eligibility on the line at Southern Miss in the season’s final game, the Herd came out flat in a 42-7 thumping.

“They had a good game plan and executed it very well,” Snyder said bluntly following Marshall’s dreadful finale.

The Herd turned the ball over four times, committed nine penalties, had a punt blocked and missed a field goal in that game.

2007: After a ho-humming 31-3 loss at Miami (Fla.) to start the campaign, the Herd showed flashes of life in its first home installment of the Friends of Coal Bowl.

For three and a half quarters, Marshall was shocking the college football world by hanging with No. 3 West Virginia.

But then Pat White, Steve Slaton and company came to life and the Herd became toast. A 16-13 third quarter lead quickly led to a 48-23 loss.

Which led to more losses — nine of them in all.

By all accounts, the ’07 campaign was when the snowball started rolling.

The Herd’s 0-7 start was its worst in 40 years. Its 48-35 loss to Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) foe New Hampshire in September still remains fresh on Marshall fans’ minds.

2008: This was the year. The team was deep, talented and had back the services of star defensive end Albert McClellan.

After four games, it was rolling. A 3-1 record, highlighted by what seemed to be a corner-turning win at Southern Miss, had Marshall fans thinking back to the glory days.

Happy Herd Days were here again.

Then it came thundering down — hard.

If back-to-back losses at WVU and at home against Cincinnati weren’t hard enough to swallow, Marshall made it a clean choke after it fell to lowly 1-6 UAB.

For the fourth consecutive season, the Herd went bowl-less. This time, finishing 4-8.

2009: Snyder’s farewell season was jumpstarted by his final ’08 statement.

“I think we’re the team to beat next year,” he said in the moments following the Herd’s ’08 finale loss to Tulsa.

An early-season win at Memphis put Marshall at 3-1 for the second straight year. Shortly thereafter, Snyder took his team back onto the Liberty Bowl Stadium turf and held a closed meeting, telling his team that he wanted them back there for the Liberty Bowl in January.

They’ll never get there.

The Herd had its chances to win a Conference USA championship this year, but late-season fourth quarter collapses put the kibosh on that dream.

In the now infamous “O-Town Meltdown,” Marshall let a 13-point lead slip away with under eight minutes remaining at UCF on Nov. 1.

The next week, it was more of the same in a 27-20 loss against Southern Miss. Twice the Herd drove in Golden Eagle territory with the game on the line. But twice, quarterback Brian Anderson was intercepted.

“I think we are playing some good football right now,” Snyder said after the Southern Miss game. “We are just coming up a little short.  We have played some good teams. I told the kids down there tonight, ‘You guys are giving it everything you have to win the game.’ So, it makes it a little rough on everyone.

“For me to sit there and say we are not doing this and that well, we are not getting better, we are getting worse. ... I can’t sit there and say that.

“I think this team is getting better every week. The competition has been going up every week, too, so I really have no complaints right now.”

Marshall split its last two games. The win — a 34-31 squeaker over SMU — gave a Snyder-led Herd team conditional bowl eligibility for the first time. The loss — a 52-21 dismantling by UTEP — essentially ended Snyder’s tenure.

Andrew Ramspacher can be contacted at ramspacher@marshall.edu.