With 8:02 left in the fourth quarter and Georgia Southern trailing Marshall by 20 points, ESPN ran a graphic saying Marshall’s win probability was 99.9 percent. As Jim Carrey’s character Lloyd Christmas says in “Dumb or Dumber,” “so you’re saying there’s a chance.”

The Eagles scored 21 unanswered points over the final 6:45 of a game that had three turnovers, a safety and three Georgia Southern touchdowns in one of the wildest games ever at Paulson Stadium, leading to an improbable 24-23 Georgia Southern victory.

With the win, the Eagles improved to 4-2 overall and 2-0 in Sun Belt play. The crowd of 24,048 there for the start of the game dwindled to a couple thousand at the end and those that left missed out on one of the more unlikely finishes in Georgia Southern football history.

“That was a culture win with a bunch of great kids who believe in each other and fight for each other and I just asked them to fight until the very end,” Eagles coach Clay Helton said. “I wish I could say that was coaching, but that was just a bunch of great players fighting their guts out and finding a way by doing whatever it took. It was an ugly game offensively, but we found a way, and that is what you have to do in conference play.”

The storylines were plentiful Saturday night, but the biggest was the play of Eagle backup quarterback Dexter Williams. Williams transferred to Georgia Southern from Indiana and was competing for the starting job, instead he ended up the third-string quarterback behind starter J.C. French and backup David Dallas.

French, who had avoided turnovers throughout the season, lost a fumble and threw an interception against the Thundering Herd. He was hit hard with 6:45 left in the game and the Eagles trailing 23-5. Helton said French had no idea where he was following the helmet-to-helmet hit, which was not reviewed for targeting, and with Dallas still nursing a shoulder injury, the Eagles turned to Williams.

The rest played out like something out of a screenwriter’s dream. Williams led the team to three touchdowns over the final six and a half minutes, throwing the go-ahead touchdown with 1:00 left in the game on a 34-yard strike to Derwin Burgess Jr.

“I actually had some of my coaches tell me this week they were proud of how I have prepared and they thought I was ready if my opportunity came up and I went into the locker room and I cried,” Williams said. “It wasn’t just me, it was a total team effort. Just the feeling I got from my teammates and everyone believing that we were going to win that game, it got to the point that we felt we were supposed to win the game.”

On his first play from scrimmage Williams threw a 34-yard pass to L.V. Bunkley-Shelton, who hauled it in at the Marshall 17-yard line. Williams capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run for his first score as an Eagle and cut the lead to 23-11 as the two-point conversion failed.

Next it was time for the defense to come up with the first of three turnovers in the last four minutes. With 4:08 to play, Marshall quarterback Braylon Braxton was fighting for extra yards and was stripped of the ball. Deontre Morris scooped it up and went 49 yards for an apparent touchdown. The refs blew an inadvertent whistle, negating the return but giving the ball back to the Eagles.

With just over three minutes to play Williams scrambled and took off for 20 yards to the Marshall 20-yard line. The Eagles usually potent running game struggled against Marshall, and Helton inserted David Mbadinga into the game. Mbadinga promptly reeled off a 17-yard run to the Marshall 3. On the next play, Mbaninga burst through the middle for a touchdown, cutting the deficit to 23-18.

The Eagles attempted an onside kick from their own 20, after a personal foul on the extra point attempt, but the Herd recovered at the Georgia Southern 26.

Three plays later, however, lightning struck again as Marques Watson-Trent hit Braxton and Latrell Bullard recovered the fumble at the Eagle 34-yard line with two-minutes to play.

Williams completed a pair of short passes to Dalen Cobb and O.J. Arnold to start the drive. Williams, (who was 10 for 14 passing for 145 yards) then hit Bunkley-Shelton for 19 yards and Cobb for 10 yards to the Marshall 34.

Just after the clock struck midnight, Williams hit Burgess, who fully extended for the grab across the goal line, down the Eagles sideline. The score put the Eagles in front 24-23 with 1:00 to play.

“Coach always says when a play comes our way, find a way to make a play,” Burgess said of his catch. “I caught the game-winning touchdowns two years ago against James Madison and it felt like the same thing here. We are taught to not let the moment get too high or too low and stay at an even keel. I am very proud of Dex. We have a couple great quarterbacks, and he was a play away from playing and he made the best of his opportunity.”

Marshall’s last possession ended as Marc Stampley leaped to pick off Stone Earle’s pass with 37 seconds to go, with Eagles players, coaches and what fans stayed around for the end storming the field as the clock ran out.

“Coach actually talked before the game that we are going to get hit with adversity in the game tonight,” Watson-Trent said. “There is just a will to win you have to have. To be down the way we were in the fourth quarter, with your starting quarterback going down, it just shows you what is special about this team. It was a group effort. It was all of us working together and believing in each other. It is just a special night and God is amazing, He truly is.”

The Eagles, atop the Sun Belt East, will host James Madison on October 19 for a 4 p.m. homecoming matchup.