The New Neighbors: Troy vs. Marshall
The next team set to join the Sun Belt is another all-too-familiar face, holding its own as a monster in Troy’s FCS history.
In the 1993 football season, Troy State completed its first legitimate undefeated year, going 10-0-1 and ending the season ranked #1. Remarkably, Troy was not seeded as one of the top four teams, despite being one of two undefeated teams across the country.
In the first round of the playoffs, Troy took out its anger on Stephen F. Austin, winning 42-20. Then, it won a shootout with the number-3 seed McNeese State, 35-28. The Trojans advanced to the semifinals in their first ever FCS postseason appearance.
The next opponent, the defending national champions, welcomed Troy State to the Mountain State for the first time, and they chose to play spoiler. On December 11, 1993, Marshall ended Troy State’s perfect season, 24-21.
It was the first of five matchups over the next 11 years.
The win sent the Thundering Herd to their third straight appearance in an FCS/I-AA title game. They made five appearances from 1991-1996, a record at the time, and took home the 1992 and 1996 titles for themselves.
That 1996 season was historic: Chad Pennington and Randy Moss led the team to a 15-0 record. The next season, that same duo led Marshall up to Division I-A (FBS), a 10-3 record, a MAC championship and a close loss to Ole Miss in a bowl game.
Again, in their first season at the FBS level, they went 10-3 and won a conference championship. The next team to do that was Georgia Southern in 2014. They Eagles, Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina all walk because the Herd thundered.
The 1998 season saw Moss leave to start his Hall of Fame NFL career, but the Herd kept winning. They went 12-1, winning another MAC title and their first bowl game ever.
Meanwhile in the Wiregrass, Troy began the process of moving to the FBS too. That included working in games against teams in the higher division, so on September 12 the Trojans returned to Huntington.
The game wasn’t as close. At least, not after halftime.
You can see more pics from the game here.
Troy’s own NFL legend Lawrence Tynes booted two field goals, and Phillip Jones added a touchdown to make it 14-12 at the half. Then the Herd exploded, scoring 28 points in the second half and running away with the game.
Thankfully the 42-12 loss didn’t hurt the Trojans’ conference record, who went 8-4 that year with a loss to National Black College Champions FAMU in the playoffs.
2001 was a memorable year for both teams. As Troy waded through its first FBS season, another future NFL star Byron Leftwich led the Herd to a 10-2 record and a historic rematch with ECU in the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Alabama. Not only was that matchup a rematch of the last game before the 1969 plane crash, the 64-61 Herd overtime victory is the highest-scoring bowl game ever.
Incidentally, Troy played FAMU in Ladd-Peebles Stadium the very next year as part of the Azalea City Classic. Three weeks before that 24-7 win, the Trojans returned to Huntington yet again. In both games, the score was the exact same, except Marshall handed Troy its third loss of the series.
The winds of change swept Troy’s way, though, and the series headed to Alabama for the first time. The Trojans’s home stadium was being rebuilt, and opening day was scheduled for September 27, 2003… the day Marshall came to town.
The Herd took a 17-13 lead with four minutes left in the third quarter, and the Trojans began their rally. In just eight minutes of gameplay, Troy doubled its score. Marshall responded with eight minutes left in the game, bringing the lead down to two.
Five plays and 71 yards later, the Trojans increased their lead, 33-24. A pair of punts followed by a Troy interception with three minutes left put the game on ice for Troy, who celebrated its first win over Marshall and its first win in the new Movie Gallery Stadium in style.
In our research, we uncovered a fan’s reflection on the game. We have reposted it in its entirety, unedited, here.
Incidentally, the Herd renamed its stadium that year too, honoring Joan C. Edwards, a woman who with her husband gave more than $65 million to the program. The only other FBS stadium named for a woman is South Carolina’s Williams-Bryce Stadium.
The next year brought even more change for the Trojans, though. Troy State University dropped the “State” in its name and joined the Sun Belt conference. The freshly minted Troy Trojans went back to Huntington, looking for their first win and 11 years’ worth of revenge.
The Trojans wore solid black helmets that day. The new cardinal ones were left in Troy, along with the shield logo, for a proper reveal the following week: a home game against ranked Missouri. It’s the only time Troy has worn a solid helmet, without a logo, since 1960.
Troy struck first, but the Herd nailed three field goals to take the lead three minutes into the second half. In the next four and a half minutes, Troy put up 10 points to take a 17-9 lead. With two minutes left in the third quarter, Marshall scored a touchdown to come within two. They missed the two-point conversion, and Troy held onto its 17-15 lead.
That’s when Demarcus Ware and the Trojan defense stepped up. For 14 minutes and at least 45 seconds, the Herd only took 11 snaps for 16 yards. Troy punted three times too, but the last one came with 24 seconds left on the clock. The Trojans then sacked the quarterback and forced an incompletion.
On the final play of the game, Brad Bates caught a 49-yard pass, getting out of bounds in field goal range. Unfortunately, the Herd had no timeouts left and the clock ran out. Troy took its second game in the series.
Like Southern Miss, this series is weighted on the side that has been in FBS longer. Troy leads Marshall in all-time winning percentage (.566-.523), National Championships (3-2), and Conference Championships (21-13).
Marshall leads all other categories, such as NFL Draft picks, All-Americans and Bowl wins, but with Pennington, Moss, Leftwich, Troy Brown, Frank Gatski and Ahmad Bradshaw, the Herd’s football legacy is an incredible asset to the new Sun Belt’s culture. The Herd will likely make rivals out of Appalachian State and the other two new neighbors, but the intensity and history of the Marshall-Troy series can’t be ignored either.