— By David Walsh
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Quarterback Brent Stockstill seems to find his ‘A’ Game when Middle Tennessee takes on Marshall.
Stockstill completed 25-of-40 passes for 317 yards and two scores and ran for one to power the Blue Raiders to a 34-24 win over the Thundering Herd on Friday night in front of 25,979 fans at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.
“I know he’s mine, but he’s the toughest kid I’ve ever coached,” said Blue Raiders coach Rick Stockstill, Brent’s dad. “He willed this team. He rallies everybody around him.”
In 2015, Stockstill threw for 353 yards and three scores in Middle Tennessee’s win at home against Marshall. The left-hander missed the last two meetings against the Herd due to injury.
This was Middle Tennessee’s first win in Huntington after four losses. Since 2013, the series between the two is now even at 3-3.
Middle Tennessee (3-2) now leads the C-USA East Division at 2-0. The Herd is 1-1 in the C-USA East and 3-2 overall. The Blue Raiders visit FIU next week and Marshall takes on Old Dominion in Norfolk, Va.
Marshall played its first game without redshirt freshman quarterback Isaiah Green. He appeared to suffer an injury to his left leg late in last week’s win at Western Kentucky. He had a cast on the leg and watched in street clothes from the sideline.
As a result, Alex Thomson, a graduate transfer from Wagner, made his first start and struggled. He connected on 17-of-34 attempts for 173 yards, a season-low passing total for the Herd.
The running game did pick up as Tyler King rushed for a season-high 165 yards on 27 carries and Anthony Anderson added 77 yards on 17 attempts. Starting running back Keion Davis also missed the game with an undisclosed injury, thus giving Anderson a spot in the lineup. The Herd finished with three turnovers.
“We’ve got a lot to fix on both sides of the ball,” Herd coach Doc Holliday said. “Too many breakdowns. Can’t do that against a veteran quarterback. Turnovers are killing us.”
Stockstill needed 67 yards to reach 10,000 for his career and surpassed that total in the first quarter and totaled 161 on 11-of-20 passing for the half.
He has thrown at least one TD pass in 28 straight games, ranking him No. 2 nationally behind Penn State’s Trace McSorley. Stockstill is the school record holder for career passing attempts, completions, passing yards per game, consecutive completions, 300-yard games, 400-yard games and total offense. He becomes the 11th player in C-USA to surpass 10,000 yards.
“A fantastic win for us,” coach Stockstill said. “We won with guts and mental toughness. We never flinched. 2-0 (in C-USA play) was the goal coming in. We want to win. We had a short week. All that’s (the record) nice. That team in there was mentally tough enough to win.”
The Blue Raiders scored on their first possession as Crews Holt connected on a 34-yard field goal. The Herd tied it on Justin Rohrwasser’s 33-yard field goal with 2:14 left in the first quarter.
Marshall took the lead at 10-3 when Anderson scored on a 1-yard run on fourth down with 13:25 left in the second period. The Blue Raiders tied it when Stockstill sprinted 5 yards for a TD with 1:09 left. He set the score up with a 17-yard scramble for a first down at the Herd 5.
On the final drive of the first half, the Herd went 66 yards in eight plays and used just 52 seconds to break a 10-all tie. King had two big runs on the drive and the TD came on Thomson’s 11-yard pass to tight end Arnie Levias.
“Nothing like it,” Levias said of the TD. “Wish I could’ve done more to help the team.”
Rohrwasser missed a 43-yard field goal on the opening series of the second half and it was all Blue Raiders from that point forward.
Stockstill’s 2-yard TD pass to Patrick Smith brought MTSU even at 17 with 8:20 left in the third quarter. Following a Herd punt, the Blue Raiders put together an 80-yard drive and took their first lead of the second half on Tavares Thomas’ 8-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-1 with 2 minutes left in the third quarter.
Another Marshall punt helped set up Stockstill’s 18-yard touchdown pass to Thomas, giving the Blue Raiders a 31-17 lead with 11:35 left.
Thomson was sacked by Darius Harris on the ensuing series and lost a fumble that led to Holt’s 18-yard field goal with 6:23 to play.
Thomson wrapped up the scoring with a 10-yard TD strike to Obi Obialo with 2:37 left to end a run of 24 unanswered points by the visitors.
Both teams generated a strong pass rush. The Herd sacked Stockstill five times and the Blue Raiders sacked Thomson six times.
“It’s one loss in the conference,” Thomson said. “Got to move forward. We worry about ourselves.”
Marshall observed a moment of silence prior to kickoff to honor former Herd quarterback Michael Payton. He passed away Thursday at the age of 48. Payton helped Herd win the 1992 I-AA national championship.