Saturday is Nov. 14 in Huntington, and that date means something there no football game can match. Fifty-six years ago, the plane carrying Marshall's team home from a game crashed on approach, and all 75 people aboard were killed. That morning the campus will gather at the Memorial Fountain to remember them, and later that day the Thundering Herd host their annual "Play For The 75" game, with fans asked to wear black.
The football stakes are plain enough. Both teams are 5-4, and Saturday's winner will have the six wins it takes to go bowling. For the Mountaineers, a sixth win would be their first since 2023. For Marshall, it would erase the memory of last season, when the Herd finished one win short. The loser still has a path. App State has UL Monroe at home and a trip to South Alabama left, and Marshall has Georgia State at home before closing at 2-7 UL Monroe.
App State arrives on a two-game slide. The Mountaineers were 5-2 and near the top of the East, then managed one field goal at Georgia Southern and lost at home to Georgia State last Saturday, 39-23, the first time the Panthers had beaten them in 13 tries. Turnovers did most of the damage. Malachi Singleton threw two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown, and as Dowell Loggains put it, "the last two weeks, we are minus-7 in the turnover ratio." The Mountaineers haven't won a game this season when they've lost that battle.
Loggains' team is also patching together an offensive line. Left tackle Devon Manuel is lost for the season, and center Jayden Thomas was carted off at Georgia Southern after a hard hit to the head late in the first half. Two days later Loggains said Thomas "is good, and he is okay," but whether he plays Saturday is still unclear. They played Georgia State without three starters up front, and the Panthers held them to 59 rushing yards. Chris Lofton has been the bright spot, with a season-high 117 receiving yards last week and a 56-yard touchdown pass of his own on a throwback.
Marshall's trouble last week started early. Zion Turner's first-quarter pass was returned for a touchdown at Georgia Southern, and after Jo'Shon Barbie's 45-yard run made it 14-7, the Herd came up short on fourth-and-1 at the Eagles' 5. Georgia Southern scored on the next drive, and it got away from there, 49-13. Marshall still ran for 250 yards that day, which is the part Tony Gibson will want to carry home.
The bigger question for Marshall is who plays quarterback. Gibson admitted this week that ten games in, the Herd are still sorting it out. Turner has started the last three games, Khalil Wilkins could see more snaps, and Carlos Del Rio-Wilson, the preseason pick for the league's top offensive player, is listed as available after missing last week with an undisclosed injury.
History leans toward whoever is at home. App State leads the series 17-11, but the home team has won the last six meetings, and the Mountaineers are winless on their last four trips to Huntington. Last fall in Boone, App State won 26-24.
The projection is Marshall 27, App State 24. The Herd run the ball better, and the Mountaineers' banged-up line is a poor match for a long night on the road. But Marshall has the worst turnover margin in the Sun Belt and an unsettled quarterback room, and App State is the better passing team, so this one should go to the fourth quarter. Expect a cold, dry night, with temperatures falling into the 30s.
The market, for the record: App State is about a 1.5-point favorite, and the total is 53.5. The projection (Marshall by 3) has the home team winning, against the line.
What breaks it: Singleton protects the ball, Lofton finds room against a defense that has given up plenty of points, and App State finally wins in Huntington. The other way it breaks: Marshall settles on a quarterback early, leans on Barbie and the run game, and the Herd pull away.