By: Anthony Doria, FM88 Sports
Huntington, W.V.a – The second year of the Tony Gibson era began Saturday as Marshall traveled up to State College to take on 18th-ranked Penn State to open the 2026 season. A record attendance of 108,489 fans broke the record for the highest-attendance game that Marshall has played in.
The outcome of the game will be one that Marshall will want to scrap quickly, as they fell 45-0 to the Nittany Lions.
“Embarrassing all the way around today. Offense, defense, special teams. Couldn’t get anything going when we did; we had penalties early, killed some drives.” Gibson said postgame, “We need to obviously go back, clean a lot of things up… we can’t let this beat us twice. We have to have a great week this week and get ready for a home opener and bounce back.”
Despite all the newcomers joining the Nittany Lions, it didn’t seem to matter as they controlled the entire game. “They dictated the tempo of this football game from snap one, and we got punched in the mouth and never recovered,” Gibson added.
Quarterback Rocco Becht, who followed new Penn State coach Matt Campbell from Iowa State, was as good as advertised. Becht went 13/18 with 271 passing yards and 4 touchdowns, as well as earning a 272.0 Quarterback rating.
Marshall’s offense was never able to gain tempo and struggled the entire game. Various penalties and missed assignments hurt any momentum the Herd seemed to get at points in the game. While they were able to get past midfield multiple times, no drive ended in the red zone. The closest they came was getting to Penn States 34 yd line.
Marshall did have a play that was just missed for a Touchdown. Late in the 1st half, Marshall was at Penn States 39 yd line trailing 24-0, looking to get some points going into the half. Quarterback Carlos Del Rio Wilson extended a play, scrambling to his left, and threw a deep ball to tight end Toby Payne in the end zone, who had a step on his defender. Despite Payne’s diving effort, the ball was just out of his reach, and it was incomplete. What looked like a big touchdown opportunity ended up being nothing.
A couple of plays later in the same drive, Marshall had a 52 yd field goal attempt to put them on the board going into the break. New Herd kicker Jorge Diaz Nicholas, a transfer from Virginia, stepped up and booted the ball through, but it wouldn’t count as Matt Campell called a timeout to ice the kicker.
Nicholas would then miss the 2nd kick, and Marshall remained scoreless, as they would not be able to score the entire game Del Rio Wilson said postgame it was a game of missed opportunities. “It was a couple of plays where we could have had a big, big bust, but there was one block missed, or when we did have a big bust, you know, we shot ourselves in the foot with a penalty, offside, or a holding or something. But other than those things, I feel like we definitely could have got that offense rolling.”
Marshall’s defense did have some good moments. They were able to stop the Nittany Lions multiple times, force four punts, and hold the Nittany Lions to only 3.6 yards per carry on the ground.
Defensive back Caleb Clark Glover said that despite the rough patches, he did see some good signs from the defense. “Coach Lambert, coach Gibby all week, they just said, play relentless, play fast, play hard and run to the ball,” Glover states postgame, referring to Marshall’s new Defensive Coordinator, Brad Lambert. “I feel like the whole defense we have, we got some things we got to clean up and execute more… but like for the most part, we ran to the ball good, pretty good as a defense.” “Once we settled down, I feel like we got some stops. We made some good plays… just settling down, gaining that confidence back in our defense because we know we can play at a high level.” Glover added.
Despite the result, the herd did have some bright spots. Wilson went 17-of-25 passing for 102 yards, and led the team with 30 rushing yards. Toby Payne caught a career-high eight passes for 55 yards, and Clark Glover had a career-high eleven tackles. Highly touted freshman punter Cooper Heimbach had eight punts for a 42.6-yard average and downed four inside the 20, which helped Marshall get some stops.
Marshall will look for redemption as they host Middle Tennessee for the
home opener of the 2026 season Saturday, September 12th at 7:00 p.m.