Portal-Depleted Marshall Bows Out of Independence Bowl

The Marshall University football team has opted not to play in the Independence Bowl against Army on Dec. 28. 

In the past week, 29 players on scholarship have left the program—along with some coaches—after head coach Charles Huff took the open job at Southern Mississippi on Dec. 8. 

Marshall (10–3) beat Louisiana on Dec. 7 to claim the Sun Belt Conference Football Championship. It earned a bowl game appearance to face off against Army (11–2), which topped the American Athletic Conference standings. Now, Army will face a 5–7 Louisiana Tech team in a far less exciting matchup. 

The Independence Bowl is officially disappointed as well: “It is unfortunate that Marshall determined they won’t be able to compete in the bowl in a couple of weeks,” Executive director Missy Setters said in a statement. “Our goal was to create the best matchup possible for our local fans and college football fans throughout the country, and we think we did that with two conference champions.”

But Marshall didn’t think it could field a team. The program currently has 36 players in the transfer portal, including 29 scholarship players—and all three of its quarterbacks.

The transfer portal, first instituted in 2018 and modified three years later to allow college athletes to transfer schools without sitting on the sidelines for a year, is open until Dec. 28. (The loosened restrictions are just one of the recent changes that have helped lead to more parity in this year’s college football season.) Players in the portal are generally eligible to play in bowl games if they haven’t signed with a new team, but since the Independence Bowl is on the same date as the transfer deadline, outgoing Marshall players have no wiggle room.

While NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals are often cited as a primary driver of transfers, coaching changes are another big reason. As of Friday, only two schools had more scholarship players in the portal than Marshall: fellow Group of 5 programs New Mexico and Charlotte. Both teams will have new head coaches in 2025. 

But unlike Marshall, neither had winning records this year.