1970 Marshall Thundering Herd football team

1970 Marshall Thundering Herd football
ConferenceIndependent
Record3–6
Head coach
Offensive coordinatorJim Moss
Defensive coordinatorWilliam "Red" Dawson (3rd season)
CaptainDave Griffith
Home stadiumFairfield Stadium
Seasons
← 1969
1971 →
1970 NCAA University Division independents football records
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
No. 2 Notre Dame     10 1 0
Villanova     9 2 0
No. 16 Air Force     9 3 0
No. 13 Georgia Tech     9 3 0
Boston College     8 2 0
No. 19 Houston     8 3 0
West Virginia     8 3 0
No. 17 Tulane     8 4 0
No. 18 Penn State     7 3 0
West Texas State     7 3 0
Cincinnati     7 4 0
Florida State     7 4 0
Virginia Tech     5 6 0
Syracuse     6 4 0
Dayton     5 4 1
Pittsburgh     5 5 0
Rutgers     5 5 0
Utah State     5 5 0
Colgate     5 6 0
Southern Miss     5 6 0
New Mexico State     4 6 0
Miami (FL)     3 8 0
Northern Illinois     3 7 0
Marshall     3 6 0
Buffalo     2 9 0
Navy     2 9 0
Army     1 9 1
Xavier     1 9 0
Holy Cross     0 10 1
Rankings from AP Poll
Memorial at Spring Hill Cemetery in Huntington, West Virginia to the victims of the 1970 plane crash.

The 1970 Marshall Thundering Herd football team was an American football team that represented Marshall University as an independent during the 1970 NCAA University Division football season. In its second season under head coach Rick Tolley, the team compiled a 3–6 record and was outscored by a total of 202 to 138.[1] The team played its home games at Fairfield Stadium in Huntington, West Virginia.

On November 14, Southern Airways Flight 932, which was chartered by the school to fly the Thundering Herd football team, coaches, and fans to Kinston, North Carolina for a game against the East Carolina Pirates and back to Huntington, crashed on approach to Tri-State Airport after clipping trees just west of the runway and impacting nose-first into a hollow. All 75 people on board died. 37 of them were members of the football team. It was the worst single air tragedy in NCAA sports history. The tragedy was depicted in the movie We Are Marshall (2006) and the documentary film Marshall University: Ashes to Glory (2000).

  1. ^ "2008 Marshall Football Guide" (PDF). Marshall University. 2018. p. 186. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 22, 2022. Retrieved August 25, 2020.