Finish on Chip On His Shoulder

A Revamp for the “Redeem Team”

Yeah, I know — it’s an Olympic year, but the sentiments are appropriate.
And with that in mind, I decided the “chip” wasn’t big enough — hence, it’s now more the size of a tree trunk. So in making it more dominant, I was allowed to change the perspective significantly and get away from the “face-off” composition.
I believe that if time permits, you should look for an atypical perspective that supports a first-person angle, this is our team so the perspective is always from Marco’s point of view.
Secondly, the perspective should promote the overall concept to be as dynamic and effective as possible.

However, it doesn’t always work out that way.
Here’s an example of where I screwed it up:

Marshall was playing at Furman in 1995 — a place where their record was 1—8.
During a brainstorming session, someone made the comment of “Marshall heading into a snake pit.” So going from a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” idea, I tried to recreate the scene where Indiana Jones reacts to the snakes covering the floor in the Well of Souls. Bad idea. In the film, the scene cinematically shows us the snakes on the floor far below — backs up to allow Jones to turn to face the camera and display his reaction. This didn’t translate well, as I only showed the snakes and never got the all-important facial reaction from Marco. This flub inspired me to make every facial reaction important.
Secondly, you can’t really tell he’s looking into a deep pit — looks more like a box or window. Sorry folks, I’ll try not to do THAT again!
By the way, Marshall won that game 31—6.

Bad Time to Come to Town?

With an awful 2007 season to put behind it, the Herd should be motivated to stomp all over any and all competition this year.
Think I’m wrong? Check out the team’s official athletic site. It features an impressive movie intro touting the team’s proud history, its legacy and the fact that it has the personnel for great things this year. “This Is Herd Country!”
Motivation? Yeah I think so.

So a good opener for any Division I Bowl Subdivision team is a lower Championship Subdivision team — unless you’re Michigan.

With that note, we remember Marshall also lost to New Hampshire last year — it’s lower division opponent.
However, New Hampshire came in as a highly competitive and decent team — much like Appalachian State did in Ann Arbor.
This year the Herd opens against the Illinois State Redbirds, a 4-7 team needing to replace several offensive starters and with big concerns in the linebacker corps.

So my initial idea here is the “face-off” motif that you know I love soooo much — I’ll be looking for ways to make the composition not so diagrammatic, but for now … Marco will have the proverbial “big chip on the shoulder, and I am toying with the idea of having a New Hampshire Wildcat gloating somewhere in the background.
That may be too much — and make things confusing, though.

Stay tuned.

Its coming ...

Been a while, folks.
Things got ridiculously busy as I had planned to do the Oak Ridge Boys for their concert advance. But I didn't get time and we changed our coverage slightly. But guess what? — I'm going to do it anyway — doing them would be too much fun.

But for now, some nice folks have been asking me what have I got going on the Herd's upcoming season.
That's right ... the end of this month! I'd better get crackin.'

My general take on this upcoming season is that Marshall should be plenty motivated. But aside from wanting to erase the memory of last year’s ongoing problems, injuries, lack of experience and resulting dismal record — I believe there is something more they should use to bring out some justifiable aggression.

Oh I’m sure as their pride will want to expose the fact that last year was a fluke, consider the following actual conversation:

“The C-USA Preseason Coaches poll just came out and the Herd was picked to finish fifth.”

“Wow, fifth in the conference is not too bad. Things must be looking up!”

“No. Fifth in the division.”

“Huh? Waitaminute the division only has six teams … What the … Fifth?!”

Apparently the belief around the league is that Marshall’s performance last year was no fluke — they absolutely stunk last year and there’s no reason to expect anything better from them this year.

Now there’s motivation.

If this isn’t an angry and aggressive season, then there’s something definitely wrong.