Marshall drops its second sunbelt game and remains winless in conference play after losing to Louisiana by a final score of 23-13 Wednesday night.

The Herd came off a short bye week after defeating Gardner Webb 28-7 on October 1 at home.

Head coach Charles Huff said Louisiana’s championship DNA showed up tonight.

“Hats off to Louisiana, they got Championship DNA, and it showed up in the second half,” he said. “A tremendous group coach D got.”

Louisiana got on the board first as Kenneth Almendares kicked a 42-yard field goal to put the Ragin Cajuns up 3-0 with 7:03 remaining in the first quarter.

Later in the second quarter, Marshall put a five-minute offensive drive together, resulting in a one-yard touchdown run from Khalan Laborn. The touchdown was set up by Henry Colombi’s 42-yard pass to Corey Gammage and a roughing the passer penalty on Louisiana’s Sonny Lawson that gave Marshall first and goal at the one.

The third quarter was all Louisiana, as they put up 13 unanswered. Scores came from a six-yard touchdown catch from Dontae Fleming and two field goals from Almendares as one would be a career-long 52-yarder.

The scoring didn’t stop for the Ragin’ Cajuns in the fourth quarter as Ben Wooldridge found Michael Jefferson for a 32-yard touchdown pass.

Despite a late one-yard touchdown run from Laborn, making it 23-13, it was ultimately not enough, as it would be the game’s final score.

Huff said the offense is currently lopsided.

“Offensively, we’re kind of a little bit lopsided right now, we’re able to run the ball, but we’re not able to consistently pass the ball to be able to keep us in position to move the ball down the field,” he said. “And again, the penalties show up, and when you’re lopsided, it’s hard to move the ball when it’s first and 15.”

Huff added that there are things to clean up.

“We got a lot of things to clean up; I think the discipline is the thing that we got to clean up the details; I’m not discouraged by anything,” he said. “We are close, but this is the real league, and in this league, you can’t just win games by playing hard, and I thought the kids played hard, I really did, I appreciate their effort, but you can’t win games in this league by just playing hard, you got to play disciplined, and you got to execute in critical situations, and you can’t hurt yourself on either side of the ball.”

Marshall has dropped three of its last four games as they head to No. 25 James Madison next Saturday at 3:30 p.m.