— By David Walsh
An emotional Marshall team playing for something bigger and striving for its fifth victory battled an opponent striving for Group of Five bragging rights.
In the end, James Madison, a candidate to be Group of Five kingpin, got a 49-yard touchdown pass from Alonza Barnett III to Wayne Knight with 2:16 left to secure a 35-23 win over the Herd in the annual ‘Play for The 75’ game Saturday before a crowd of 26,727 at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.
James Madison leads the Sun Belt Conference East Division at 6-0 and is 8-1 overall. The Dukes received votes in both national polls last week.
“Congratulations to James Madison. They’ve got heck of a football team,” Herd coach Tony Gibson said. “We got a locker room hurting right now for a lot of different reasons. We wanted this game. For not only us, but for the 75. We put a lot into it. So it’s a tough pill to swallow. My message to them is we’ve still got a lot to play for. We want to send these seniors out the right way. So I’m going to enjoy the next 21 days with these guys. We’re going to keep working to get better. We’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to keep playing hard.”
Marshall (4-5, 2-3 SBC) has to win at least two of its final three games to get six wins and bowl eligible. The Herd returns to action next Saturday against Georgia State in Atlanta.
Marshall trailed by as much as 16 midway through the third quarter, but charged back to within 28-23 after scoring 11 straight points.
“They’re not going to quit and I mean that. That’s not going to happen,” Gibson said. “I told them all week long if I see you guys playing soft, playing with no effort, they’re not going to play. We’re going to play the game the right way. We’re going to honor the game the right way. Especially this week. That is going to be the standard in this football program. We’re going to play hard, going to play fast.”
A fake punt pass from punter Nathan Totten to Gavin Magorien led to a 4-yard TD pass from Carlos Del Rio-Wilson to Tracy Stephens with 1:04 left in the third quarter followed by a 2-point conversion. With 10:15 to go, Lorcan Quinn connected on a 23-yard field goal to reduce the lead to 28-23.
Marshall’s defense got a pair of stops and possession for the offense near midfield with 4:54 to play. The Dukes then stopped the Herd a yard short on fourth down, before the stadium-clearing score.
“We had all the momentum we needed,” Gibson said. “Came out in the third quarter and our kids rallied. The fake punt really gave us some juice. Punch it in, get a two-point conversion, get a couple of stops. Unfortunately we couldn’t get a first down there at midfield to extend that drive and see what happens at the end. I mean there’s five minutes left, we punch it in there and then all the pressure goes back on them.”
Barnett III completed 14-of-24 passes for 270 yards, three scores and an interception that came when he got hit as he threw and Herd defensive lineman Paul Hutson III picked it off for his second theft of the year.
Gibson found favor with Hutson’s pick and the pressure his team put on Barnett in the second half. Barnett got hit with an unsportsmanlike penalty after he got tripped up on a short run and the call put the Dukes back at their 12 for the punt. Marshall would get the ball at its 47 with 4:54 left. However, four straight runs netted 9 yards and James Madison took over and could sense success. On the play after a Herd timeout, Barnett found Knight wide open short left for the clinching score.
“Paul’s been playing well all year,” Gibson said. “I love the effort that guy plays with. I mean he’s a 100 miles per hour. I love his motor. I’m glad we have him a couple of more years.
“We were starting to heat the quarterback up. We had guys doing the right stuff and we weren’t playing scared. When you’ve got guys in the face, you’re blitzing the right way and covering the guy. So I think that is one thing we can take from this game. We had success when we were doing the right stuff. We came up a little short. I hate that last touchdown because I don’t think that tells the story of this football game, but it’s our fault. We’ve got to get a stop.”
The Dukes made it tough on Del Rio-Wilson, who finished 16-of-35 for 154 yards. He ran 23 times for 73 yards.
“It was tough to throw,” Gibson said. “We couldn’t protect. We have way too much pressure on him. Collapse the pocket every time he was trying to drop back. He was getting pushed out of the pocket. I thought our game went well. We ran the ball hard. Our offensive line gets moving people off the ball, not leaning on people. Again unfortunately at the end we couldn’t get three (actually four) yards on two downs to extend it.”
Antwan Roberts paced Herd runners with 121 yards on 20 carries and a TD.
Marshall racked up 248 yards rushing on 50 carries against the top run defense in the Sun Belt, which came in allowing 80.3 yards.
“They made plays. We made plays,” Gibson said. “It’s just the way the game goes. The momentum swings. We still have the opportunity. There’s two minutes to go in the game, we’ve got third-and-four and told our guys exactly was coming. We have to do a better job. We have to be smarter as coaches, players and carry over what we work on during the week to the field on Saturday. We can’t get out in the game and just lose our minds, play out of control. We have to do a better job of coaching our guys up. We started to get some injuries on defense late in the game. I had to burn a timeout that ended up costing us late. And we lost it. They took advantage of it. That’s why they’re 8-1 and we’re 4-5.”
The Dukes led 28-12 when Barnett connected with Jaylan Sanchez on an 80-yard strike with 7:47 left in the third period.
Quinn went 3-for-3 on field goals. His first two came from 49 and 52 yards late in the second quarter. It’s the fifth straight game in which Quinn had made two or more field goals, breaking the school record. Quinn has converted on 17-of-21 field goals this season with four kicks covering 50-plus yards.
The annual “Play For The 75” game commemorates and honors those lost in the 1970 Marshall plane crash that killed 75 people, including 37 team members, on the way back from a game at East Carolina.
Marshall is the first SBC team to score in the second half against the Dukes this season.