HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- Bye weeks can bring out the best and worst in college football teams.

Conference USA members Marshall and Rice, which will face off this weekend in Houston, offer examples of that.

The Thundering Herd has had a good game, a so-so game and a bad game coming off a bye week or longer-than-normal time between games this season. The Owls have had a couple of good games offensively but not-so-good games defensively in those situations.

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The Thundering Herd is 1-2 coming off bye weeks or longer-than-normal time between games. Marshall had 14 days to prepare for Alabama-Birmingham (23-21 loss), nine days for Houston (37-23 win) and 10 days for East Carolina (19-16 overtime loss) in a three-game stretch over the past two months.

The Owls, on the other hand, are 2-0 in those situations. Rice had seven days to prepare for Memphis (42-35 win) and 13 days for Southern Mississippi (45-40 win).

"I know for us I thought we played extremely well when we had our other one against Southern Miss," Rice Coach David Bailiff said. "We scored 45 points and played one of our finer first halves of defense. We didn't play very well defensively in the second half.

"I think it can go either way. The thing we have right now at Rice is tremendous senior leadership. When you explain to them while we are doing the things that we are to still improve as a football team and get people healthy, I think we'll come back (this week) and be focused on finishing strong and trying to play our best against Marshall."

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Rice (7-3, 5-1) has had 13 days to prepare for Marshall (4-6, 3-3).

The Owls will host the Thundering Herd at 3:30 p.m. (EST) Saturday at Rice Stadium.

CBS College Sports -- available on DirecTV (channel 613), Dish Network (152), Suddenlink (317), Comcast (174) and Armstrong (499) -- will televise the game.

Rice is a nine-point favorite.

"It was absolutely necessary for us," Bailiff said of the Owls' bye week heading into their cross-division matchup versus the Thundering Herd.

"We had hit a point defensively where we were down six players at linebacker and we needed a week off to get those guys healed. We should get the majority of those guys back this week.

"It was good for us just from being able to get guys healthy and also practice on fundamentals and just try to improve as a football team."

Bailiff taught his team about the Thundering Herd last week.

"We introduced Marshall's game plan and what they do structurally, offensively and defensively," he said. "Tuesday and Wednesday there were no pads. We wanted to get a feel for how they lined up. Then Thursday we put pads on, except at the linebacker position.

"We let the linebackers still get the reps to see what the Marshall route structures are and what their blocking schemes look like. I think we had a full speed look at it -- at the same time we were very sensitive to keeping the guys healthy while making sure this team gets better."

Bailiff said he didn't change practice much last week.

"The only thing we did differently was keeping the pads on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday during the last open week," he said.

"We're at a point in the season where the guys know the stresses of a game and you don't have to have the pads on right now. We can still practice at a near full speed tempo and at the same time get everything we need out of it."

Despite the Thundering Herd's recent struggles, Bailiff said he was impressed with the opponent he saw on game film.

"When our football team sees how Marshall physically dominated Houston and how they had big plays in that game, we better not look past anybody and we better not look past Marshall," he said.

"They have some very talented, skilled players. They have great offensive players and they're playing some of the best defense in the conference right now. I just think they had trouble getting over the East Carolina loss."

In addition to the benefits of a bye week, the Owls also will have home field advantage.

"It's wonderful how it has been laid out for us," Bailiff said. "It's great to have the last two games at home. But also the single most important thing is for us to be 1-0 this week.

"We can't look ahead because as people start to look ahead, that's when they lose. I know that the senior leaders that we have on this football team are not going to let that be a problem."

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