HUNTINGTON, W.Va.— Marshall ran through, around and by Rhode Island, racking up 432 yards rushing in a lopsided 48-7 victory Saturday night.
You have to dig deep into the Marshall record books to find statistics that compare to the thrashing Marshall dealt the Rams on the ground. Marshall’s 432 yards rushing is the most since The Herd rolled up 576 yards on the ground against Detroit Tech in 1940.
Marshall finished the game with 724 yards total of offense, just the third time in school history it has eclipsed the 700 yard mark.
Rakeem Cato was The Herd’s leading rusher with 143 yards on nine carries while throwing for 267 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He finished the night with 410 total yards. Devon Johnson rushed for 137 yards and a touchdown, marking the first time since 2006 Marshall has had two rushers with 130 yards or more.
“I might take a visit over there and get a couple of running plays and a couple of notes like that,” joked Cato.
The defense may have been even more impressive than the offense as Rhode Island was dominated throughout the game. The Rams punted on nine of their first ten drives and threw an interception on the tenth. Rhode Island was limited to just 175 total yards, 64 rushing and 111 passing.
While at first glance it would appear the outcome of the game was never in doubt that was far from the case in the first half. The Herd rolled out of the gate driving 54 yards in just three plays for the first score of the ball game. But then the offensive struggles set in. On Marshall’s next five drives, it failed on fourth down inside Rhode Island territory twice, fumbled twice and punted.
“We can’t start out slow like that,” emphasized receiver Tommy Shuler. “Coach Legg always tells us we’ve got to start out fast because we’ve got a bulls eye on our back. So we’ve got to start out fast and play Herd football.”
Even a 26-yard field goal by Justin Haig with 2:22 left in the first half felt like a failure for The Herd offense, since it squandered a touchdown opportunity when Eric Frohnapfel dropped a sure scoring pass.
Adding to Marshall’s struggles in the first was turnovers. The Herd fumbled three times, bring potential scoring drives to a screeching halt.
“If you turn the ball over three times against a good team then you going to get beat,” said Coach Doc Holliday. “You’ve got to take care of the football. If you don’t do that then at some point you are going to lose. So, we need to do a better job of handling the ball.”
However, the tide started to turn at the end of the first half. Marshall’s defense forced another quick three-and-out and gave the offense the ball back with 1:18 until intermission. Marshall went to work in the hurry-up offense and looked like the Marshall offense fans have come to expect.
Cato drove the offense down the field capping off a six-play drive with a 27-yard touchdown pass to Tommy Shuler. The score gave Marshall a 17-0 lead going into the half.
In the third quarter, Marshall put to rest any doubt about the inevitable outcome of the game. The Herd scored 21 points on a pair of Steward Butler touchdown runs of 39 yard and one yard and a three-yard scoring toss from Cato to Angelo Jean-Lewis. Marshall outgained the Rams 218-79 in the third quarter.
“We were just making plays,” said Cato. “Speeding up our tempo and going fast and trying to play every situation like it was a two minute situation.”
From that point, the rout was on.
Cato broke loose for a 63-yard touchdown run and Justin Haig tacked on a 22-yard field goal in the fourth quarter for the 48-7 final.
Devon Johnson had his second straight game of 100 yards rushing with 137 yards and a touchdown.
Davonte Allen led receivers with 5 catches for 115 yards. Tommy Shuler hauled in three passes for 68 yards and a touchdown.
Marshall is back at home next week against rival Ohio. Kickoff is set for noon.