HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- According to Marshall football coaches and players, the Thundering Herd is its own worst enemy.

Thanks to the Herd's myriad of miscues, Central Florida handed heavily favored Marshall a 30-14 homecoming loss Saturday.

"We're bringing a lot of the problems on ourselves," said Marshall Coach Mark Snyder, whose team committed four turnovers and eight penalties. "They're self-inflicted. We're not making plays where we need to make plays."

UCF came into Edwards Stadium as a 71/2-point underdog and left with a 16-point victory.

That is a 231/2-point swing.

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Betting lines typically are fair and accurate indicators of how games should go and how teams match up against each other.

Marshall has failed to cover the spread six times in nine games (there wasn't one for the season opener against Division I-AA Illinois State). The Thundering Herd did 78 points worse than expected in those games (Wisconsin, Memphis, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Alabama-Birmingham and Central Florida).

Marshall has beaten the spread three times. The Thundering Herd did 431/2 points better than expected in those games (Southern Mississippi, Houston and East Carolina).

The difference is 341/2 points on the minus side, yet another sign that Marshall has underperformed this season.

"I wouldn't say underperformed," junior defensive end Albert McClellan said. "We're definitely not where we want to be. We're basically just beating ourselves. We have a lot of plays that we left out on the field."

Marshall (4-6, 3-3) is an 81/2-point underdog entering its Conference USA matchup with West Division contender Rice (7-3, 5-1).

The Thundering Herd will face the Owls at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in a CBS College Sports Network telecast from Rice Stadium in Houston.

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CBS COLLEGE Sports and Verizon on Monday announced the network will launch on the communications company's FiOS TV service later this month.

CBS College Sports will be available with Verizon's Extreme HD service and the FiOS TV Sports Package.

The network has multimedia and marketing rights for the Atlantic 10 Conference, Conference USA, Mountain West Conference and Navy.

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MCCLELLAN AND his teammates gathered for a spur-of-the-moment, players-only meeting after their latest loss.

"That was huge," McClellan said, "because we don't want anybody pointing fingers."

Anything that needed to be said was said then and there to somebody's face rather than behind somebody's back.

"Then, it's over and done with," McClellan said.

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THERE APPARENTLY will be no quarterback controversy.

Redshirt freshman Mark Cann will continue to start for the Thundering Herd despite his struggles, based on Snyder's non-verbal communication Saturday during his postgame press conference.

Snyder only nodded in approval when asked if Cann would remain with the first string.

Snyder replaced Cann with sophomore Brian Anderson for two fourth-quarter series Saturday.

Cann completed 4-of-17 passes for 32 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. Anderson connected on 3-of-12 passes for 52 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions.

"I never really found a rhythm," said Cann, who has thrown for 1,684 yards with 13 touchdowns and 12 interceptions on 141-of-283 passing (49.8 percent). "It has got to be fixed."

Cann received a vote of confidence from sophomore tailback Darius Marshall, a fellow member of the Class of 2007.

"Mark is showing a lot of composure," Marshall said. "People point the finger and blame Mark for all types of things.

"He's just a young guy. He has to get into his rhythm. For me, Mark is the best quarterback we have got. He's tremendous. He's a tremendous leader."

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SPEAKING OF Cann, his younger sister earned a pair of athletic honors last week.

The South Carolina Association of Women's Sports named Caroline Cann, a junior outside hitter at Landrum High School, its state volleyball player of the year in Class 1A. She also earned a spot on its Class 1A All-State team.

Cann finished with 180 kills, 73 digs and 60 aces this season, when she led Landrum to its third consecutive state championship.

Contact sports writer Jacob Messer at jacobmes...@dailymail.com">jacobmes...@dailymail.com or 304-348-1712. His blog is at blogs.dailymail.com/marshall.