Georgia Southern and Marshall games the past two seasons have come down to the last seconds of the game. Saturday at Paulson Stadium the game was decided a lot quicker as the Eagles Dominated the Thundering Herd with a 49-13 victory.

Head coach Clay Helton warned his team this week about not looking ahead or focusing on being in first place in the Sun Belt eastern division and Saturday they responded with their most complete effort of the season.

“I think tonight shows that we are a mature football team,” Helton said. “We have a lot of older guys who understand this is the first game in November and they understand we can’t get to where we want without winning this one tonight. We created separation and played well against a good football team. We did our job tonight and now we regroup and go back to work for another rivalry game next week at Georgia State.”

Marshall came into the game with a 5-3 record and had won their last two games. Saturday the Eagle defense gave up 412 yards of offense but did come up with two turnovers including a pick six. On offense a balanced attack saw 172 yards rushing and 287 passing with no turnovers for the second straight game.

“I thought offensively we started a little slow, but coach Ryan Aplin made some adjustments and that’s what good teams do,” Helton said. “For the first quarter and a half we leaned on each other. Good defense especially with the pick six from Chase Calicut and a great job from Alex Smith punting and keeping them in bad field position. Our playmakers made plays and we played clean football.”

The Eagles started a little slow but made up for it late in the first quarter. Max Johnson hit Jeremiah Ware for a 23-yard touchdown, and then on the Herd’s first play from scrimmage Chase Calicut picked off a Zion Turner pass and went 24-yards for a score to give the Eagles a 14-0 lead.

Marshall answered with a 45-yard Joshon Barbie touchdown run, but the Eagles responded with a 70-yard touchdown pass from Johnson to Alex Taylor for a 21-7 halftime lead.

The third quarter saw Johnson find Andre Greene for a one-yard touchdown pass for a 28-7 lead. In the fourth Johnson took off running for a 16-yard run where he hurdled a defender at the goal line. Ty Cummings added a 16-yard touchdown run and Marshall got a 66-yard run for a score late by Khalil Wilkins for the final points of the game.

“Max is making great decisions and we are making in game adjustments,” Helton said. “When they made adjustments, we made our own adjustments. We said if you’re going to leave Jeremiah Ware and Alex Taylor open well we believe in our guys and we are going to put the ball up. Max even tried to be like Josh Dallas leaping into the end zone.”

Georgia Southern was 2-4 after dropping non-conference games to Clemson, Houston, Jacksonville State and JMU. Now having won three in a row Helton thinks the tough competition the Eagles have played is responsible for their current success.

“I thought our non-conference schedule prepared us for this moment,” Helton said. “We played really tough teams including two Power-4 teams and that made us ready for conference play. We sit here at 4-1 in conference and played great team football tonight and now it’s about being consistent and say okay we did our job now let’s go do our job again.”

Up next Georgia Southern travels to Atlanta to take on Georgia State for a 3:30 start Saturday afternoon.