Marshall Football outlasted the Western Michigan Broncos’ second-half comeback attempt to win 27-20 on Saturday, Sept. 28, to secure its second home win of the season despite rainy conditions.
“I’m really proud of the players’ effort and their refusal to lose,” head coach Charles Huff said. “That’s what we talked about all week – there will be two teams: one who wants to win and one who refuses to lose. We went through what that looked like – battling adversity and finding a way regardless of the circumstances to battle through.”
The Herd came out of halftime with a 17-3 lead over the Broncos. That lead quickly dissipated over the third quarter and the early moments of the fourth with Western Michigan evening the score at 20.
Marshall’s defense turned the tide of the game in the fourth, with Jabari Ishmael forcing a costly fumble from WMU quarterback Hayden Wolff. The Herd offense, led by quarterback Stone Earle, took full advantage of the turnover.
A pair of breakaway runs from running back AJ Turner knocked the Broncos’ defense back on its heels. Earle delivered the subsequent knockout blow on a 34-yard touchdown pass to Christian Fitzpatrick to give the Herd the lead 27-20 going into the last half dozen minutes of the quarter.
The biggest stop of the game came at the hands of the Herd’s defense. The Broncos put together a methodical drive that drained seven minutes off the clock and put itself inside the Marshall 10-yard line with only 37 seconds left in the contest.
Defensive standout Mike Green stuffed Western Michigan’s run attack on third-and-1, forcing the Broncos into a fourth-down attempt. With the game on the line, Wolff launched the ball out of the back of the end zone, which resulted in a turnover on downs.
“All week, coach Huff did a good job emphasizing the ability to respond when things are going wrong, what are you going to do next,” Green said. “They had some good drives, and on the last drive, they were marching down the field, and I told the guys, ‘We just need three plays to stop them on fourth down.’ When you emphasize the ability to respond, that helps the defense lock into different levels. That led to the success we had on the last drive.”
Green finished the game with eight tackles, including a crucial late-game tackle for loss.
The Herd’s first drive of the game resembled that of the contest against the Ohio State Buckeyes with a Payne touchdown. Only this time, it was tight end Toby Payne who received a 32-yard pass from Earle and trotted into the end zone.
Marshall dominated the first half offensively, with flashes from both the running game and through the air.
An explosive 67-yard run from Turner in the late stage of the second quarter put the Herd in scoring position once more where Earle connected with Carl Chester for the score.
Earle finished the game with three touchdowns, 177 yards and another 53 yards on the ground. Turner notched his third 100-yard game of the season with 124 yards.
The men draped in Kelly Green produced 420 yards of total offense with 243 being rushing yards.
The Herd begins Sun Belt Conference play on Saturday, Oct. 5, against the Appalachian State Mountaineers in front of a home crowd at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.
