Herd tramples Bears 62-0 in season opener

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – By the time the horn sounded at the end of the first half Marshall’s stat line read like it was the end of the game.

Marshall amassed 418 yards of total offense.

Quarterback Chase Litton threw for six touchdowns, completing 13-of-16 for 309 yards and the Herd had a 49-0 lead against an overmatched Morgan State team.

Marshall inserted its reserves in the second half and finished with a 62-0 win over Morgan State to begin the 2016 season.

Despite a Marshall fumble on the opening drive of the game, there was little Morgan State could do to slow down the Herd’s offense and second-year quarterback Chase Litton. Marshall moved the ball at will as Litton completed passes to ten different receivers.

“We still got to watch film and see the mistakes we made and correct them,” said Litton. “There’s a lot of things the outside world doesn’t see that we see. We’ve got to in there and find them and correct them.”

Litton became the fourth quarterback in Marshall history to throw at least six touchdowns in a game, joining Rakeem Cato, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich. Litton’s previous career-high was four touchdowns in his first start against Norfolk State.

Litton completed his first touchdown pass of the season to Michael Clark with 5:41 to go in the first quarter. Clark, Litton’s former high school teammate, had not played a football game in nearly four years after opting to play Division I basketball at St. Francis out of high school.

“It was very exciting. You don’t know what’s going on around you and I just wanted to get my feet back and get used to playing the game and eventually I caught on,” Clark said with a grin.

That touchdown set the tone for the rest of the half. Litton went back to work with a 58-yard catch and run to tight end Ryan Yuracheck, then a 35-yard scoring toss to Clark again.

Marshall had a 21-0 lead by the end of the first quarter.

But Litton was just getting started. In the opening minutes of the second quarter, Litton completed a 31-yard touchdown pass to Deon-Tay McManus, who made a highlight reel catch over top of a defender for the score.

Litton capped off his monster first half with touchdown passes of 44 yards and 10 yards to Justin Hunt and Emmanuel Byrd respectively.

“We just took it one play at a time and executed what we planned to do,” said guard Michael Selby.

While the offense was rolling the defense was making life miserable for Morgan State offense. The Herd defense lived on the Bears side of the line of scrimmage, making it nearly impossible for Morgan State to get anything going on the ground. When quarterback Chris Andrews did drop back to pass he was constantly harassed in the pocketed, being sacked twice, hurried nine times and hit numerous others.

“We were on everything, everything just went right for us on defense,” said safety Corey Neely.

The play of the game came on the defensive side of the ball when it Morgan State was threatening inside Marshall territory. Andrews completed a pass to Willie Gillus. He was immediately hit by safety Corey Neely, forcing the ball loose and George Davis pulled the loose ball out of the air and sprinted 95 yards for the touchdown.

“I saw the tight end so I went low and I put my head on the ball and I looked up and said ‘George is going to score!’” said Neely.

The 95-yard fumble return for a touchdown broke the old Marshall record of 85 yards, set by James Hagan 94 years ago.

The onslaught continued in the second half with Marshall’s reserves in the game. Tony Pittman rushed for a 9-yard touchdown.

Marshall’s defense returned another fumble for a touchdown with three seconds remaining in the third quarter. Ty Tyler picked up a loose ball and returned it 20 yards for the score.

When it was all said and done, Marshall rolled up 530 yards of offense, 313 passing and 217 rushing, while limiting Morgan State to 222 yards of total offense, with most of that coming in the second half.

Tony Pittman led Marshall with nine carries for 85 yards and a touchdown. Emanuel Byrd was the Herd’s leading receiver with three receptions for 58 yards and a touchdown.

Marshall is back at Joan C. Edwards Stadium next Saturday to face Akron. Kickoff is set for noon.





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