By: Anthony Doria, FM88 Sports
Marshall Football (3-3, 0-2 SBC) returns after its lone bye week of the year as it will play host to the South Alabama Jaguars (4-2, 2-0 SBC) for a Tuesday night showdown in Huntington.
The last time that Marshall played a midweek game was in 2024, when the Herd went on to beat Georgia State 35-20. Marshall is still searching for their first conference win, after dropping a hard-fought 27-21 loss to Coastal Carolina.
Turnovers proved to be Marshall’s backbreaker, as they turned the ball over six times. That number nearly tied the most turnovers in a single game, which is currently at seven, set in 1990.
“Film looked like it looked live, not good. Six turnovers, it’s crazy,” head coach Tony Gibson said about the Coastal game. “When you turn it over six times, you’re not going to win a game. I don’t care who you’re playing.”
Marshall holds one of the worst turnover margins in the country at -9, only two away from Charlotte, who holds the worst at -11.
“We’re minus nine right now with turnovers. We’ve turned over 14 times, and we’ve taken away five. That’s not a good recipe right there.” Gibson said.
Despite the loss, Marshall did have a lot of positives to take from the game. Marshall’s defense had by far its best game of the year. The Herd held the Chanticleers to only 307 yards of offense and only 73 passing yards. Marshall also held Coastal to only 10 points off of turnovers, which was a big reason the game was as close as it was.
Defensive end Javae Gilmore talked about how the defense improved in the game.
“Our improvement was swarming to the ball more. We’re seeing things with the new defense we’ve got,” Gilmore said. “It was a struggle at first, but I’m starting to see a little more with that.”
The major bright spot for the Marshall offense was running back Judah Price. Price came alive in the game, going for 124 yards on only 12 carries with a rushing and receiving touchdown.
Price’s presence was especially felt late in the contest, as he was the main catalyst in Marshall’s comeback attempt.
“I was just going to keep fighting, keep going, and just try to get a spark for the team,” Price said. “Somebody needed to do something, and I felt like right when I did, it was the right time. That’s my goal moving forward.”
Gibson said he was proud of Price’s performance.
“I saw it on the field. The way he was playing, the way he was running, catching the ball, just plays hard,” Gibson said. “That’s a kid that cares, really happy with where he was.”
South Alabama is coming off a 56-49 track meet-style win over Arkansas State last week. The win kept the Jaguars undefeated in conference play and a major threat in the Sun Belt West Division.
South Alabama’s offense has been one of the best in the conference. The Jaguars have the 3rd-best scoring offense, averaging 38.8 points per game, as well as the 3rd-best total offense at 437.8 yards per game.
The Jaguars are led by their ferocious rushing attack. Running backs Keenan Phillips, PJ Martin, and Trae’von Dunbar are all averaging over 4.5 yards per rush and have all gotten double-digit carries in at least two games.
This next stat will be shocking to read: South Alabama has more rushing yards than passing yards so far (1,322- 1,305). In case you’re curious, of the 136 FBS teams in 2025, only six teams had this feat, three of which were the service academies of Army, Navy, and Air Force. In modern football, that is not a sight seen often.
Gibson said the Jaguars run the ball well, and that sets up their offense to succeed.
“They run the ball, very efficient. A lot of RPO stuff comes off of their run game because they are efficient running it, so they do a nice job,” Gibson said.
The Jaguars are led by third-year head coach Major Applewhite. Applewhite has already matched his win total from last year, after the Jaguars went 4-8 in 2025.
“They’re a good football team. They have a good coach; he understands ball,” Gibson said. “They’ve done a great job in their portal class of hitting their needs and what they needed to get better, and they’ve done a really good job with it.”
Gilmore said that Tuesday is a great opportunity for the team to show that Marshall is not done.
I told my fellas it’s a big game. We got to come out after the two losses. Everybody looking down on us like we won’t be,” Gilmore said.
“We got to come out and show everybody, even the fans, we still who we are. We still come and play hard Marshall football.”
Huntington is set for a key Tuesday night showdown. Kickoff will be at 7:30 PM Oct. 20 on ESPN