HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — An Old Dominion offense that hung 47 points and 619 yards on Coastal Carolina didn’t get on track until garbage time seven days later.
And a Monarchs defense that shut down the Chanticleers was gashed.
Marshall stymied the Monarchs twice on fourth down inside the Thundering Herd 5-yard line and turned five Old Dominion turnovers into 31 points in a 48-24 Marshall win on Saturday at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.
The Herd led 48-10 before Old Dominion punched across two touchdowns in the final 6:56.
“I don’t believe that whole ‘everything (that) could go wrong, did go wrong’ thing,” Monarchs coach Ricky Rahne said. “You’re the master of your own fate. If you don’t do things correctly, if you don’t have the right technique, if you don’t execute the play calls or call the right plays or whatever correctly, then that’s what’s gonna happen.
“There’s no thing out there, aura out there, that said, ‘OK, tonight, we’re gonna give Old Dominion adversity.’ We caused our own adversity with our actions.”
The Monarchs (4-2, 1-1 Sun Belt Conference) picked up 439 yards of offense. They had four chunk plays of 40-plus yards, but after two of them, Marshall buckled down to force turnovers on downs.
Marshall’s Boogie Trotter took a first-quarter interception 22 yards to the house to open the scoring, then forced and recovered a fumble that set up Herd quarterback Carlos Del Rio-Wilson’s 6-yard touchdown run.
The Herd’s Zane Porter fell on two Monarchs muffed punts that resulted in Marshall points.
Marshall’s Antwan Roberts scores a touchdown against Old Dominion during game on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington, W.Va. (Sholten Singer/Herald-Dispatch)
All the giveaways were too much for the Monarchs to overcome as the Herd picked up 445 yards of offense and held the ball for 36:35 to Old Dominion’s 23:25.
The Monarchs also committed three turnovers on downs, including two inside the Marshall 5-yard line.
“Hindsight being what it is, maybe I should kick those field goals, but I believed in my guys, especially inside the 4-yard line like that,” Rahne said. “And I’m gonna continue to believe in my guys.
“We can’t continually turn the ball over like that, but touchdowns there, and maybe it puts a little bit of pressure on (Marshall) and they respond differently. They’re playing great football right now and they deserve a lot of credit for that, and I don’t want our not playing up to our potential to take away what type of performance they had.”
Old Dominion’s Colton Joseph and Tre Brown hooked up for a 71-yard touchdown pass and Riley Callghan hit the point-after to tie the game at 7 with 47 seconds to go in the first quarter.
But Marshall tallied the next 17 points — 10 of them off Monarchs giveaways — and Old Dominion was never closer than 14 points again.
Joseph completed 15 of 28 passes for 266 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. Na’eem Abdul-Rahim Gladding had 71 yards receiving. Maurki James ran for 83 yards and a TD on 12 carries.
Seth Naotala collected 12 tackles for the Monarchs. Joseph and James had scoring runs of 4 yards and 1, respectively, in the final minutes.
On the day before Tony Gibson’s 53rd birthday, Marshall (3-3, 1-1 SBC) handed the first-year coach his first conference victory.
Del Rio-Wilson threw for two touchdowns and ran for two. He passed for 219 yards and rushed for 95 more.
The Monarchs fell to 0-6 all-time at Marshall and 1-10 altogether against a Herd team motivated to wash out the taste of a 54-51 loss at Louisiana, followed by a bye week, before meeting Old Dominion.
“That’s what happens when you’re at the top of the food chain,” Abdul-Rahim Gladding said. “We are now hunted. So we just gotta go back and come back stronger for (next week’s game at) JMU.”
Old Dominion was seeking its first 5-1 start since 2012 and first-ever at the Division I FBS level. Its loss to the Herd takes some of the starch out of the Monarchs’ showdown next Saturday at James Madison, which improved to 5-1 and 3-0 in SBC play with a 24-14 victory over Louisiana earlier Saturday.
But the Monarchs know they are a win in Harrisonburg from being right back in the SBC East title picture.
“The measure of a man is how he responds to adversity,” Rahne said. “That’s what this game is so great, is you get a bunch of different opportunities to respond to adversity, and it shows you who you want to be.”
