Huntington - It wasn't as if Judy McLeod didn't know about Marshall. Before coming to Conference USA in September 2005, she was athletic director at Tulsa for 10 years.
So she helped that school move from the Western Athletic Conference, joining Marshall and four other newcomers in the realignment of that time.
Her work there speaks for itself. I thought that school, pound for pound, had the most impressive athletic program of the 12 schools in the 2005-12 C-USA lineup.
She is a new commissioner - the third in the 21-year history of the league - but she has worked at the Irving, Texas, headquarters as long as MU has been a league member.
McLeod visited Huntington over the weekend, attending the investiture of Jerry Gilbert, MU's new president. As a bonus, she got to witness Marshall's game against Louisville; the result for MU wasn't nearly as impressive as the crowd.
The official attendance of 40,592 was higher than an actual season attendance at some places (looking at you, Florida International). It was a feather in C-USA's cap in what has been a difficult year.
McLeod was as straightforward about the league's new TV contract as could be expected. She was pleased with the visibility and praised the quality of production of new member beIN Sports (trust me, that's legit). She is pleased with beIN's Facebook presence.
But she acknowledged the financial blow.
"It was really hard," she said. "We've done some things to try to counteract that - we've added a chief revenue officer, whose sole responsibility is selling sponsorships; we've never had that before.
"The other thing I'll say is we've signed short-term deals. We feel great about the partners, but hopefully we can get back out there and see if we can increase the value in the future."
As I and others have painfully pointed out, Marshall no longer enjoys the sizable TV revenue advantage over the league it escaped last decade, the Mid-American Conference. Now, it's a disadvantage.
If that isn't galling to Thundering Herd fans, the sudden competitive deficit has to be. I conveyed that to McLeod.
I asked her: "If you know the history of Marshall, there are some fans who are kind of in anguish over the perception that Conference USA may have fallen behind the MAC in the pecking order. Has that thought come across, and how would you dispute it, if so?"
She came to the press box prepared, I thought, but she didn't see this one coming. Another pundit piped in, "Especially after last week," referring to the Herd's 65-38 beatdown by Akron.
"Well, Western Kentucky beat Miami [Ohio] and ...," she said. "But, at the end of the day ... you got me. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say about that one. We're going to compete [but] I can't change the outcome of games."
No, she cannot. League members and the commissioner can discuss the matter all they want, but it's up to the programs to get better. So far this year, not so good.
On Saturday, Florida Atlantic lost at home to Ball State, 31-27 and FIU lost to Central Florida, dropping C-USA's record against other "Group of 5" leagues to 3-9. By conference, that's 0-3 vs. American, 0-1 vs. Mountain West, 1-2 vs. Sun Belt and 2-3 vs. the good ol' MAC.
Keep in mind, the G-5 does not include independents Army and Massachusetts, who are a combined 3-0 vs. C-USA. Army has made Rice and Texas-El Paso surrender, while FIU has lost to UMass. Ugh.
No, McLeod can do nothing about it. She can't fire FIU's athletic director (bummer) and she can't accelerate Charlotte's rise from program infancy.
But she should know this isn't helping the next TV contract. And she should know Marshall fans don't care much for looking up at a conference it once fled.
nnn
In this age of Twitter and other forms of instant communication, I know a number of Herd fans are upset over finding out late in the week that quarterback Chase Litton would be out for the Louisville game. Considering the team knew back on Tuesday, they should be.
Why? Fans are consumers, asked to pony up at least $30 to buy a ticket, asked to give to the Big Green, asked to pay inflated concession prices. Some loyal fans pay tidy sums to sit in crappy chairbacks that need to be replaced. Contrary to what some believe, they have a few rights.
And if you think an entire football operation is going to keep major news under wraps for five days, you're out of your ever-loving mind. The number of people in the football program or connected in some way runs past the 200 mark, making the shelf life of a state secret about 48 hours max - especially if there's somebody who likes to chat with ESPN.
I am fine with not disclosing the nature of injuries, but the rest of this is irritating. Here's hoping MU is smarter this week, because the Litton questions aren't going away.