The WKU football team (5-3, 4-1 C-USA) was in a dead heat with bitter rival Marshall (5-3, 3-1 C-USA) in Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington, West Virginia, on Saturday afternoon.

With six seconds left in the game, the score was knotted 23-23. WKU had battled back from a 17-0 hole early in the second quarter and looked poised to drag the contest into overtime, but its fate ultimately rested on preventing another field goal after a late push by the Thundering Herd.

Marshall kicker Justin Rohrwasser — who’d already established a new career-long field goal after netting a 46-yard attempt earlier in the contest — had an opportunity to win the game for the Thundering Herd with a 53-yard field goal attempt as time expired.

Head coach Tyson Helton called two timeouts in an attempt to ice the redshirt senior, forcing Rohrwasser to boot two successful attempts before his third and final kick. With no timeouts left to call, the Hilltoppers could only watch as Rohrwasser officially put WKU away for good, 26-23.

As the kick sailed through the uprights, the Hilltoppers had their four-game winning streak snapped and ceded some of the ground they’d claimed in the C-USA East Division race.

Helton said it was a hard-fought game his players battled hard to win, but WKU came up just short.

“I expect nothing less,” Helton said about the comeback. “We have a great group. They’re always going to battle. There’s no quit, no getting down. We went in the locker room at halftime, and you wouldn’t know whether we were up or down. Guys regrouped, talked about the adjustments we needed to make, came out here and battled in the second half.”

The loss was a shocker for WKU. The Hilltoppers lost a shot at securing bowl eligibility before the calendar turned to November, and the red-hot WKU defense looked vulnerable again after weeks of posting absolutely dominant performances against opposing offensive units.

The WKU offense seemingly found its stride, as offensive coordinator Bryan Ellis’ group scored 23 points, which was its second-best outing in C-USA play, and posted 426 yards of total offense, which was the most the Hilltoppers have posted in any conference game yet.

Although two early turnovers were very costly and immediately translated to points for the Thundering Herd, WKU put together one of its best offensive performances in 2019. Unlike in the previous conference games, a surging offense picked up the slack for a struggling defense.