BOONE, N.C. — Renewing a rivalry, and pairing it with some championship-related revelry, makes for a perfect Black Saturday at The Rock.
App State (4-6, 1-5) will close the regular season with back-to-back home games, starting with Saturday's Sun Belt matchup against Marshall (5-5, 3-3) at 2:30 p.m. It will also be Heroes Day at Kidd Brewer Stadium, with ESPN+ and the App State Sports Network as options for fans not making the trip to the High Country.
They'll miss a highly anticipated gathering of individuals from the first national championship team in program history. It's been 20 years since the 2005 team followed a semifinal thriller against Furman in Boone with a title-game triumph over Northern Iowa in Chattanooga, Tenn., to give Hall of Fame coach Jerry Moore his first of three straight championships.
A lot has changed in the college football landscape since then, with App State making the jump to FBS football in 2014 and working currently to regain its winning form in the first year under the direction of head coach
Dowell Loggains.
The Mountaineers have dropped four straight games, including both Sun Belt home games to date, with a high-scoring Marshall team set to appear in Boone. The Thundering Herd has a new head coach of its own in Tony Gibson, who spent the previous five seasons as NC State's defensive coordinator.
Since starting 0-2, Marshall has averaged 37.4 points per game during its 5-3 run back to .500, although there were a pair of two-overtime games in that stretch against Louisiana (54-51 loss) and Texas State (40-37 victory). Before winning 30-18 at Georgia State last weekend, the Thundering Herd earned attention by rushing for 248 yards against a JMU defense that allowed a single rushing yard to App State.
Since opening the season with a 45-7 loss at Georgia, Marshall is averaging 221.1 rushing yards per game, led by the 65.2 yards per game from dual-threat quarterback Carlos Del Rio-Wilson, who spent three years at Syracuse after beginning his collegiate career at Florida. Antwan Roberts had back-to-back games with 120-plus yards against Coastal Carolina and JMU.
App State still ranks second in the Sun Belt by allowing just 135.0 rushing yards per game, even after allowing 324 to James Madison. Despite Marshall being held to 168 rushing yards last weekend at Georgia State, Del Rio-Wilson completed 22 of 27 passes for a season-high 321 yards while throwing at least three touchdown passes for the third time this season.
App State quarterback
AJ Swann had started each of the previous two games since making a fourth-quarter appearance at ODU in his return from a September injury, but he suffered a different injury at JMU and is listed as out for Saturday.
JJ Kohl has started four times this season, leading a talented but increasingly shorthanded offense.
Turnovers have been an issue for the Mountaineers, both in quantity and timing, and Marshall's 20 takeaways this year include 13 interceptions. In its last three victories, the Thundering Herd produced five takeaways against ODU, three against Texas State and three against Georgia State.
The home team won the App State-Marshall game in each of the five previous seasons, including matchups as Sun Belt counterparts in 2022 (at Marshall), 2023 (in Boone) and 2024 (at Marshall).
