Marshall opts out of Independence Bowl amid transfer exits: report

One college football team has so many outgoing transfer players that it won't be able to play in its bowl game this postseason.

Marshall won't be able to play its bowl game after losing so many players to the transfer portal. / Aaron Doster-Imagn Images

On the first day of college football’s bowl season, one team has elected to skip the postseason, as Marshall has opted out of the Independence Bowl against Army, according to multiple reports.

Marshall is citing the transfer portal as the reason why, as the school lost 29 players to the portal in the first week of the 2024 transfer window.

Now, the race is on for the Independence Bowl to find a replacement team to face off against the Black Knights in its game, which is currently scheduled for Dec. 28.

The search party will have officials working through college football’s existing APR scores involving teams with a 5-7 record to become eligible for the game.

That task now involves finding another college football program that would be able to take a place in the game, one that becomes difficult as most other players have already left campus.

Teams can become bowl eligible by winning six games, but depending on the number of teams that reach that threshold, five-win teams can also be considered in some circumstances.

And those schools can be added to a bowl game based on their APR to help fill out the matchups.

Marshall went 10-3 this past season under head coach Charles Huff, who left the school to become the next coach at Southern Miss.

He led the Thundering Herd to a Sun Belt championship in 2024, and the school hired Tony Gibson as his replacement, but Huff’s departure still resulted in a transfer exodus.

So many that apparently the school won’t be able to play in its bowl game.

(Yahoo)

-

More college football from SI: Top 25 Rankings | Schedule | Teams

Follow College Football HQ: Bookmark | Rankings | Picks