Week 5 Preview: Marshall at Louisiana

As we sit one-third through the season, conference play opens up this Saturday with the 2-2 Marshall Thundering Herd traveling to Lafayette to face the 1-3 Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns. Marshall is coming off of a 42-28 win against Middle Tennessee State, their second win in a row after falling 0-2 to start the season. Meanwhile, the Cajuns are returning home after a heartbreaking 34-31 loss to Eastern Michigan, the Eagles knocking through a last second field goal to lift them over the Cajuns.

This be only the fourth meeting all-time between these teams. Marshall won last year’s Sun Belt Championship game 31-3, but Louisiana leads the all-time series 2-1 in this proverbial old blood versus new blood match-up. The Cajuns being Sun Belt members since 2001 and the Thundering Herd only recently joining in 2022.

Marshall

After an 0-2 start to the season, the Thundering Herd have rattled off two rather dominant wins, combining for 80 points to bring themselves back to even at 2-2.

Scoring was in abundance for Marshall, putting up more than 35 points for the second game in a row. Most of the scoring coming from their signal caller Carlos Del Rio-Wilson.

In his second game, after getting the nod over Zion Turner, Rio-Wilson has led the Thundering Herd offense to new heights. Against Middle Tennessee, Del Rio-Wilson went 18-for-22 with 261 yard, four passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown en route to the victory.

Over his last two games, Del Rio-Wilson has been getting it done both through the air and with his legs, throwing for 369 yards with six passing touchdowns and rushing for 80 yards with two rushing touchdowns.

Del Rio-Wilson talked about his development after being named the starting quarterback

“I feel very confident,” said Del Rio-Wilson “I feel like I put in the work and the extra things that needed to be put in to get to this point.”

For his efforts, he was recognized as Offensive Player of the Week for the Sun Belt Conference.

Head Coach Tony Gibson is now 2-2 with the Thundering Herd in his first season at the helm. Gibson was pleased with his offense against Middle Tennessee, giving props to both his quarterback and receiver for a dominant performance during his weekly press conference.

“Offensively, I think we looked really good,” Gibson said “Carlos was in full control, Lacy was the best player on the field, made some big time catches, big time runs”

However, Gibson was disappointed with the defensive effort through the game, citing bad tackling as a point of emphasis.

“Not pleased at all. It was embarrassing. Didn’t tackle well, played scared,” said Gibson “That’s disappointing from the effort that we came off of the week before.”

While that Marshall passing defense has allowed over 1000 yards to opponents this season, they have only allowed 410 rushing yards with an average 3.3 yards per carry. The Thundering Herd defense has also only forced four turnovers this season.

Louisiana

The Ragin’ Cajuns are off to their worst start since the 2018 season where they had also started the season at 1-3. Their most recent outing being a close 34-31 loss to Eastern Michigan, their second one score loss of the season.

In his weekly press conference, Head Coach Michael Desormeaux harped on the self-inflicted mistakes that have Louisiana sitting at 1-3.

“You go back and watch the tape, two weeks in a row we just did not tackle well,” Desormeaux said “You’ve got to run through tackles, wrap them up.”

Since being named co-champions back in 2020, Louisiana has excelled in conference play. While boasting a 22-10 record against the Sun Belt since 2020, the Ragin’ Cajuns have appeared in two championship games and captured the crown in 2021.

Opposite to Marshall’s balanced offense, Louisiana leans more on the rushing attack. Two of their running backs averaging over 50 yards per game with a team average of 199.2 rush yards a game.

Leading the rushing attack is Zylan Perry. Against Eastern Michigan, Perry rushed 15 times and accumulated 110 yards with two touchdowns. This season, Perry has a total of 336 rushing yards and four touchdowns.

However, Louisiana will have a tough task if they want to establish their run offense. The Thundering Herd are only allowing 3.3 yards per carry this season.