Turnovers Mask an Otherwise Great Day for Jalin Marshall

By Michael Citro on October 6, 2015 at 10:10 am
Jalin Marshall may have fumbled twice but otherwise he had a solid game.
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Unfortunately, many people have a proclivity for remembering bad events and overlooking the good. It's the whole glass half-empty vs. glass half-full thing. So, it seems everyone has been talking about Jalin Marshall’s two fumbles against Indiana.

But, aside from the turnovers, which were not insignificant, Marshall was actually having a very good game.

Hidden in all the angst from another escape from the Hoosiers are the six catches and 110 receiving yards Jalin posted on Saturday. That’s a tick over 18 yards per reception, which is a great average. He might also have scored a touchdown had Cardale Jones delivered a better ball in the red zone. Another potential reception was thrown behind him on a slant pattern.

Marshall’s 110 receiving yards represent a new career high for Marshall, who reached 95 yards twice last season, once against Indiana and also at Minnesota. While fighting for extra yards, however, he turned two good plays into bad ones on Saturday.

As a fan, you want a player who doesn’t give up and will try to turn modest gains into big ones and big ones into touchdowns. That obviously has to be balanced with ball security. Marshall knows that and you can bet the coaches aren’t going to let him forget it this week.

The Hoosiers have to be sick and tired of Jalin running through their secondary.  Marshall has 205 receiving yards and three touchdowns over the last two games against Indiana. Saturday, Marshall had 76 punt return yards, including a 38-yarder, and had another good return called back on a penalty. Last year, he turned the game around with a punt return for a touchdown and finished with 56 return yards. That’s 337 total yards and four touchdowns in two outings against Indiana.

The 5-foot-11, 205-pound Middletown High School product has a variety of skills. The second commit in the 2013 recruiting class was a high school quarterback who rushed for a mind-boggling 4,759 yards during his high school career.  As a redshirt freshman last year, he caught 38 passes for 499 yards and scored six touchdowns. He also rushed 25 times for 145 yards and another score and added 283 punt return and 56 kick return yards.

In 2015, Marshall’s season got off to a slow start due to a suspension against Virginia Tech for violating team rules. In his first three games—against Hawai’i, Northern Illinois, and Western Michigan—Marshall made six receptions for 91 yards. He doubled his receptions total Saturday with six more catches for more yards than in the previous three games combined.

Despite missing the opener, Marshall is well on his way toward eclipsing his numbers from his first season as a receiver. But to continue getting touches, he’s going to have to be a bit more careful with the football. After the game Saturday, Urban Meyer said he will.

“He's a smart enough kid where he'll get that fixed,” he said.

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