Missouri State ruined Marshall's 2025 opener with a walk-off comeback for the program's first-ever FBS win. A year later, the Herd get their shot at payback in Springfield.
Bush’s Picks
MRSHMOST
MRSHMOST
OverUnder
Best BetMarshall
Marshall brings back the most productive quarterback in this game in Carlos Del Rio-Wilson, a preseason all-conference honoree with a full season of reps in this offense. Missouri State's win last year came with a different head coach and staff calling the shots, so the Bears are leaning on program belief more than proven continuity here. Take the more experienced, more talented roster on the road.
Marshall
+QB Carlos Del Rio-Wilson is preseason Sun Belt Offensive POY
+WR room returns Tamarez and Horton in year 2 of scheme
+Motivated by last year's heartbreaking 1-point loss
−Finished 5-7 in Gibson's chaotic debut season
−Leading rusher Antwan Roberts transferred to Arizona
−Offensive line largely rebuilt through the portal
Missouri State
+Already beat this exact Marshall team last year
+New coach Casey Woods came from SMU's 2024 CFP staff
+Went 7-6 with an Xbox Bowl bid in year one at FBS
−Returns only 8 starters under a brand-new coaching staff
−Opens season at Texas A&M with just 1 home game before this
−Unproven personnel in new offensive and defensive systems
This one carries baggage. Last September, Missouri State erased a fourth-quarter deficit with an 80-yard scoring drive to beat Marshall 21-20, a result that still stings in Huntington and still gets framed in Springfield as the signature win of the Bears' first FBS season. Marshall quarterback Carlos Del Rio-Wilson enters his second full year as the starter after a 2025 that saw him lead all returning Sun Belt players in total yards, and he was voted the conference's Preseason Offensive Player of the Year heading into 2026.
Missouri State isn't the same program that pulled off that upset, either. Ryan Beard, who guided the Bears through their FCS-to-FBS jump, left for Coastal Carolina, and Casey Woods — SMU's offensive coordinator during the Mustangs' 2024 College Football Playoff run — takes over with a roster that returns only 8 starters. Woods opens his tenure with a brutal early slate: at Texas A&M in Week 1, then a lone home tune-up against Lindenwood before Marshall comes to Robert W. Plaster Stadium.
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Both sides are also selling a bit of a reset. Marshall churned through 50 players in the transfer portal after Charles Huff left for Southern Miss, and Tony Gibson's first season in Huntington bottomed out at 5-7. This is the Herd's second-ever game played in the state of Missouri, and beating the team that beat them last year would go a long way toward validating the belief that the Sun Belt East race is back in play for Gibson's group.
Marshall Thundering Herd
Sep 12?vs Middle Tennessee—
Sep 5?@ Penn State—
Missouri State Bears
Sep 12?vs Lindenwood—
Sep 5?@ Texas A&M—
Recent form.
Marshall's offense should look sharper regardless of the scoreboard from last September. De'Andre Tamarez and Adrian Horton are both back in a receiving corps that's now a year deep in Rod Smith's system, giving Del Rio-Wilson more familiar targets than he had in the opener a year ago. The bigger question is up front and in the backfield — leading rusher Antwan Roberts left for Arizona, and West Virginia transfers Robby Martin and Xavier Bausley are being counted on to stabilize an offensive line that's largely been rebuilt through the portal.
Missouri State's counterpunch is continuity of belief more than continuity of roster. Beating an FBS team for the first time since 1990 was proof of concept for a program still finding its footing at this level, and that win over this exact opponent is the kind of result a new staff can lean on with a locker room that's otherwise adjusting to new coordinators and new terminology on both sides of the ball just three weeks into the Woods era.
