Marshall Beats Gardner-Webb 36-35 on a Field Goal with 3 Seconds Left
Jorge Diaz Nicolas kicked a 32-yard field goal with three seconds on the clock and Marshall beat Gardner-Webb 36-35. The Thundering Herd needed it. They had trailed 35-27 with under ten minutes to play, and the lead had changed hands five times before the kick.
Gardner-Webb scored first and kept hitting big plays. Cole Pennington threw four touchdown passes (11 and 75 yards in the first quarter, 25 in the third, 44 in the fourth), and Ruben Tshilombo added a 36-yard fumble-recovery touchdown in the second. Every time Marshall got ahead, Gardner-Webb had an answer, until it did not. The Runnin' Bulldogs led 35-27 after the 44-yarder and then never scored again.
Marshall's offense simply kept going. It gained 569 yards, 413 of them passing, and Carlos Del Rio-Wilson threw 386 of those. Xayvion Turner-Bradshaw's 34-yard touchdown catch at 6:06 of the fourth cut it to 35-33, though the two-point pass failed, and that is why a field goal won the game instead of a touchdown. Marshall also gave it away twice, an interception and a lost fumble, so this one was not clean. It was also a game with 71 combined points that was decided by a kicker, which feels right for a week in which nobody kept a lead, and Diaz Nicolas had already made from 54 and 21 yards earlier, so he was not exactly cold when the moment arrived.
Marshall is 3-1. Gardner-Webb is 0-2. For fantasy, this was a Marshall passing day: Del Rio-Wilson had 38.2 points, Turner-Bradshaw 32.1 and Jo'Shon Barbie 18.6, and Barbie got his on a rushing score and a receiving score.