On a Saturday in September 1971, a group of teenagers walked onto a football field in Huntington, West Virginia. They were terrified. Honestly, who wouldn’t be? Just ten months earlier, on November 14, 1970, Southern Airways Flight 932 had slammed into a hillside, killing all 75 people on board. That included nearly the entire Marshall University football team, the coaching staff, and many of the school's most dedicated boosters. It was—and remains—the deadliest sports-related air disaster in U.S. history.
People thought the program was dead. Done. Buried in the Appalachian mud along with the wreckage.
But then came the 1971 Marshall football team. They weren't superstars. In fact, many of them weren't even supposed to be playing varsity ball. Because of the tragedy, the NCAA made a rare exception, allowing freshmen to play on the varsity squad for the first time. This group of "Young Thundering Herd" players didn't just play for a score; they played to prove that a community could breathe again.
The Impossible Rebuild of 1971
Jack Lengyel didn't have to take the job. He was the coach at College of Wooster, and he knew that taking over at Marshall was a professional gamble at best and an emotional minefield at worst. He was the only one who really wanted it. Red Dawson, an assistant coach who hadn't been on the fatal flight because he was on a recruiting trip, stayed on to help, though the weight of survivor's guilt was clearly crushing him.
The roster was a patchwork quilt. You had a few upperclassmen who weren't on the plane due to injuries or other circumstances—guys like Nate Ruffin, who became the emotional heartbeat of the team. Then you had the "Young Thundering Herd." These were freshmen like Reggie Oliver, a quarterback who was suddenly tasked with leading a team in the wake of a national tragedy.
Think about that pressure. You're 18 years old. You're trying to figure out where your classes are, and suddenly you’re carrying the grief of an entire city on your shoulder pads.
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The 1971 Marshall football team faced a brutal reality: they weren't very good, at least not at first. They were undersized, inexperienced, and playing against teams that had been practicing together for years. In their season opener against Morehead State, they lost 29-6. It felt like the skeptics were right. Maybe the program should have stayed shuttered.
The Game That Changed Everything
Then came September 25, 1971. The home opener against Xavier.
Fairfield Stadium was packed, but the air felt heavy. It wasn't just a football game; it was a memorial service in cleats. The crowd wasn't cheering for a blowout; they were just hoping the boys could hold their own.
It was a gritty, ugly, beautiful game.
With no time left on the clock, Marshall was down 13-9. They were on the Xavier 13-yard line. Reggie Oliver took the snap. He looked for an opening and found his tight end, Terry Gardner, on a screen pass. Gardner scrambled, dove, and hit the end zone.
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Marshall won 15-13.
The stadium didn't just erupt; it exhaled. People were crying in the stands. Not because they beat Xavier—Xavier wasn't exactly a powerhouse—but because the 1971 Marshall football team had proven that life goes on. They won another game that year against Bowling Green, finishing the season 2-8. By any statistical measure, it was a bad season. By any human measure, it was a miracle.
Why the "Young Thundering Herd" Still Matters
You see a lot of sports movies—We Are Marshall being the obvious one here—that focus on the "big win." But the 1971 season wasn't about a championship. It was about the existence of the program. If those kids hadn't suited up, Marshall likely would have dropped football entirely. The school was considering it. The board of governors was leaning that way.
The 1971 Marshall football team acted as a bridge. They were the link between a tragic past and a future that would eventually see the school become a I-AA (now FCS) powerhouse in the 90s, producing legends like Randy Moss and Chad Pennington.
Debunking the Myths
Sometimes people think the 1971 team was some "Cinderella" squad that went to a bowl game. They didn't. They were battered. They lost games by scores like 66-6 (to Miami of Ohio). It's important to be honest about that. The heroism wasn't in the scoreboard; it was in the persistence.
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Another misconception is that the "Freshman Rule" was changed just for Marshall. While Marshall's situation was the catalyst and the most famous application, the NCAA was already moving toward allowing freshmen to play due to various pressures, though Marshall was the first to truly rely on it for survival.
Actionable Lessons from the 1971 Season
If you’re a coach, a leader, or just someone trying to rebuild something from scratch, there are real takeaways from how Lengyel and his "leftovers" handled 1971:
- Acknowledge the Elephant in the Room: Lengyel didn't try to make the players forget the crash. He made them wear "75" on their helmets. You can't heal what you don't acknowledge.
- Focus on the Process, Not the Result: In 1971, a "win" was just getting through a practice without someone breaking down. If you're in a rebuild phase, redefine what success looks like for your specific situation.
- Embrace the "Underdog" Identity: The 1971 team knew they weren't the biggest or the best. They used that lack of expectation to play with a certain kind of freedom.
The legacy of the 1971 Marshall football team is visible every time the current team takes the field and the crowd chants "We Are... Marshall." It’s a reminder that even when everything is lost, you can still find a way to line up and play the next snap.
To truly honor this history, fans and researchers should visit the Marshall University Memorial Fountain on campus. It is silenced every year on the anniversary of the crash and turned back on in the spring—a physical representation of the cycle of grief and renewal that the 1971 team lived through every single day. If you want to dive deeper into the technical aspects of the rebuild, Jack Lengyel's own accounts and the archives at the Morrow Library in Huntington provide the most unvarnished look at the logistics of starting a Division I program from zero.