Marshall aims to get over .500 against Georgia State

 by Ben Anderson

    

    Marshall football aims to get to over .500 Thursday as it plays the Georgia State Panthers at Joan C. Edwards Stadium in primetime Sun Belt Conference action.

    The contest will mark the second straight season that the two teams will meet in a mid-week ESPN matchup and the second straight year that Marshall has played a Thursday night contest at home.  

    Both teams enter the contest ranked 4th and 6th in the Sun Belt Conference East Division. They need to win to boost contention in the division’s standings of determining the East division champion. 

    Marshall is ranked 4th place with a record of 3-3 (1-1) and comes off a 24-23 loss vs Georgia Southern where Marshall suffocated a 20-point fourth quarter lead in a game with first-place implications in the East Division standings. Georgia State is ranked 6th with a record of 2-3 (0-2) and comes off a 21-14 loss vs the Old Dominion Monarchs. 

    Both teams are led by top sacks leaders in the Sun Belt Conference. Marshall’s Mike Green enters ranked 1st in the Sun Belt and 5th in the nation with eight sacks. Georgia State’s Kevin Swint enters ranked 2nd in the Sun Belt and 20th nationally with four sacks. 

    The game will mark the third meeting between the two programs. Both teams have won one contest in the series, with all coming at home. Last season, Georgia State won 41-24. The lone time Marshall won in the series was the first matchup in 2022 by a score of 28-23.

    Marshall head football coach Charles Huff is in his fourth season with a record of 25-20. Georgia State head football coach Dell Mcgee is in his first season with a record of 2-3.

    Marshall’s offense arrives ranked 10th in the Sun Belt Conference in yards of total offense with an average 377.5 yards per game. Marshall is also ranked 2nd in scoring offense with an average 29.2 points per game.

    Georgia State arrives offense ranked 11th in the Sun Belt Conference in yards of total offense with an average of 351 yards per game. Georgia State is also ranked 11th in scoring offense with an average of 21.4 points per game. 

    The game will mark the continuing guessing game of who Marshall’s quarterback will be between Stone Earle and Braylon Braxton. Earle started the first four games of the season, but Braxton started against Appalachian State and finished with 129 passing yards and 140 rushing yards, with 5 touchdowns. Earle and Braxton went back and forth with playing time against Georgia Southern. 

    Huff said that the two quarterback system came due to the challenges that the team has faced the past few weeks.

    “The two quarterback option really came from more of the gameplan and how we wanted to attack those specific teams,” Huff said during his weekly news conference.

    Georgia State has a similar situation with quarterbacks as vs Old Dominion, backup Zack Gibson relieved Christian Veilleux and found success going 6-6 with 46 passing yards and one touchdown. 

    Huff said that Georgia State’s strength on defense is speed. 

    “A really good group (defensive line) upfront, not as big as Georgia Southern, these guys are a little bit more quick twitch, they play very physical upfront and they get off blocks, and their DB’s are active,” Huff said

    The game will be broadcast on ESPN with kickoff at 7 p.m. The radio broadcast will be on WMUL 88.1-FM and at www.marshall.edu/WMUL on stream 1, with pregame coverage starting at 6 p.m. from Joan C Edwards Stadium.