QV grad Marshall ranks 2nd in D-III
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
After a big game, Tre Marshall celebrates by going to sleep. Carrying the ball 186 times through seven games takes a lot out of the Geneva College running back, never mind the coursework required of the computer science major — C++ and PHP coding — or the fact that the junior is married.
“I’ll probably sleep for two days straight,” Marshall said. “Saturday, Sunday, go to church and go right back to sleep.”
He’s also his church’s worship leader and treasurer. The man keeps himself busy. This season he has kept opposing defensive coordinators busy as well: Through his first seven games, Marshall turned those 186 carries into 1,280 rushing yards, the second-highest total in Division III, and 12 touchdowns. Coach Geno DeMarco’s triple-option offense, with Marshall, a Quaker Valley graduate, as its primary back, is humming in its second full season.
“Just vision-wise, I can see the field a lot better than I did last year,” Marshall said. “Last year was the first time running it. I can choose where to hit, where to run it to.”
Marshall played the slot for Quaker Valley and caught 29 passes as a receiver for the Golden Tornadoes during 2015, his freshman year. But Geneva went 2-8 that year, 1-7 in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, and the offense scored only 16.6 points per game. Only once in the final seven games did Geneva score more than 15 points. DeMarco installed the triple option the following year.
“What we needed to do was get away from what everybody else in the league was doing, and for that matter everybody in the country,” DeMarco said. “… It’s an offense that you have to marry. You can’t date it, you’ve got to marry it.”
DeMarco began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Georgia Tech, which under current coach Paul Johnson runs the triple option effectively, and his roommate at the time was current Yellow Jackets offensive line coach Mike Sewak. Their input, plus DeMarco coaching against it for a quarter century, helped him install the offense, and Marshall rushed for 936 yards in its first year.
This year, he anticipates quarterback Bryan Stafford’s reads, so he has a better understanding of when he will get the handoff and when he’ll be a decoy. He also trusts his offensive linemen.
“I tell these guys just give me three or four seconds,” Marshall said. “They give it their all. Sometimes I come out of the huddle and they tell me where to run. They say ‘Tre, come here.’
“I run to their side, and they’re right.”
The synergy began in the first game of the season, when Marshall ran for 201 yards on 31 attempts with two touchdowns. He scored three times on a 268yard game the next week, ran for three more touchdowns Sept. 23 against Thiel and rushed for 215 yards Oct. 14 against Carnegie Mellon.
He tweaked his left ankle at the end of that game, which limited him to 16 carries for 53 yards against Case Western Reserve, the only team that has managed to slow him down.
Marshall said he understands the playbook and his reads in a similar way to how he processes codes — “It’s hard at first but then basically it’s the same stuff over and over again, just getting better and better at it.” He starts to see patterns. He also keeps high expectations for himself.
“I’m getting better every single game,” Marshall said. “If I got 200 yards last game I’ve got to get past 200 yards, because I can do 5 yards better than what I did last game. I can run my plays 10 times better than what I did last game.”