HUNTINGTON - In the first 12 seconds of game time Saturday night, Marshall's coaches pushed two of the right buttons.
Some wisecrackers would say that was more than all of last season, but let's put that 3-9 in the rear view. Focus, ladies and gentlemen, focus.
The shocking moment of Marshall's 31-26 win over Miami (Ohio)? You don't have to go past the opening coin toss, when visiting the RedHawks called it incorrectly and the Thundering Herd won the option. After the usual discussion, MU captains were turned with their backs toward the north end, the referee tapped the shoulder and made the "receive" signal.
What? Marshall wins the toss and receives? Really?
Coach Doc Holliday may have done that before in his 91-game tenure in Huntington, but I surely can't remember it. He prefers to defer the option to the second half.
That has its merits, and there are several times Marshall has gone into halftime with a lead or maybe a three-point deficit and hey! Gets the ball next. On the other hand, you couldn't put a cannon to my head and make me give Western Kentucky or Middle Tennessee the ball first.
To be fair, WKU won the toss last year at Marshall before Kylen Towner's TD return threw a mortal dagger into a downcast Herd just 14 seconds in. Keion Davis, who scored Marshall's first touchdown on a game-opening kickoff in who knows how many years, held onto that bad memory.
"The last game of the season last year, it happened to us, so vice versa," he said. "That was the last [bad taste] in my mouth."
Which brings to Davis, and why he was out there in the first place. He was the top running back last year and top kick returner in 2016, though one might not be sure if the latter would have happened without Willie Johnson's season-ending injury.
Davis faced a fight to keep either job, and proved to be the No. 3 man in the backfield Saturday behind Trey Rodriguez and Anthony Anderson. Holliday mentioned Tyler King's absence, and you have to think he will jump into the picture when he returns.
But Davis may be your kickoff returner for the foreseeable future. His his two kickoff-return touchdowns, he showed a gear I'm not sure I've seen before. On both occasions, he pulled away when he cleared the 50 and got by the last defender.
If you asked me on Aug. 1 who would return kickoffs, I would have guessed Johnson, who averaged 27 yards on four returns before his injury. But Holliday went with Davis for a simple reason.
"I had confidence, because he had done it a year ago," Holliday said. "I've got some young kids who can run, but they've never been back there. To be honest with you, I made that decision because he had some reps back there and I trusted him that he would play well back there, and he did."
Davis may not score on a kickoff return for the rest of the year, but if he remains dependable and gets more good blocking from that unit, the Herd will like the result.
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Addressing the media after the game, Holliday quickly credited the strength and conditioning program and coach Luke Day. From time to time, Marshall pulls off a "weight room win," and this may be one.
Think about the defense, which played 86 snaps. About 13 came on Miami's last two possessions, which came in the final 5:10 and sandwiched Marshall's conservative three-and-out.
On the first such series, Marquis Couch's sack erased Miami's momentum from two first downs. On the final series, Ty Tyler harassed Miami quarterback Gus Ragland into an incompletion, Brandon Drayton's shoe-top tackle may have saved a touchdown on the next play and then Malik Gant knocked the ball away from James Gardner, whose catch would have brought the RedHawks to the Marshall 30 or 35.
Cornerback Chris Jackson called Gant's hit a play that won the game. To stop that Miami team and its crafty quarterback twice in the final five minutes, you had to do something right in the offseason.
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As if Marshall's task at North Carolina State this coming Saturday isn't tall enough, the Wolfpack is smarting over its 35-28 loss to South Carolina.
The Wolfpack outgained the Gamecocks 504-246 and had 17 more first downs, but left the neutral site of Charlotte grumpy over a long list of errors.
That brought an epic line from The News & Observer in Raleigh. If you know the history of North Carolina's House Bill 2, you'll get this; if you don't, you won't.
The line: "The last time this state gift-wrapped something for that state like this, the NCAA [basketball] tournament was exiled to Greenville - where South Carolina also beat a Triangle team [Duke] that had no excuse for losing."
Whether you get the joke or not, get this: N.C. State will be dialed in and angry when Marshall arrives for the 6 p.m. kick at Carter-Finley Stadium.
Contact Doug Smock at 304-348-5130 or dougsmock@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @dougsmock and read his blog at http://blogs.wvgazettemail.com/dougsmock/.