Marshall

On November 14, 1970, a plane crash killed 75 people — the entire Marshall football team, its coaches, and boosters returning from a road game. The program rebuilt from scratch over five years, climbed back to Division I-A, and eventually became, under Bob Pruett from 1996 to 2004, one of the most consistent mid-major programs in the country: six MAC championships, Randy Moss and Chad Pennington in the same backfield, a period when Huntington produced winners the way it wasn't supposed to be able to. 'We Are Marshall' took that story into the wider culture. What the story didn't take with it is that the program has had to rebuild multiple times since — and has, every time.

The most recent version arrived fast. Huff won the 2024 Sun Belt title and left for Southern Miss within days of the championship. Roughly half the roster followed him into the portal or transferred elsewhere; Marshall withdrew from its bowl. Tony Gibson, hired from NC State, spent 2025 with a skeleton crew and finished 5-7. It was the kind of season that, at most programs, produces urgency about the program's direction. At Marshall, it produces a specific familiarity: the Herd has rebuilt from circumstances worse than this.

The 2026 season will tell Gibson which pieces of that 2025 roster survived and whether the portal class he built in the offseason can accelerate a turnaround or just stop the bleeding. Marshall doesn't need a national villain to find motivation — the standard was set in 1970 and proven every time the program rebuilds from nothing and wins anyway. The question for 2026 is how quickly the rebuilding part ends.