Old Dominion aims to end an 8-game skid against Marshall at home

Marshall has owned this series, winning eight straight meetings and nine of the last ten, with Old Dominion's lone win in the stretch dating back to October 2017. That history runs headlong into a different trend this week: Old Dominion is projected to finally break through, favored 25-21 at home with a 58 percent win probability from Versus.

The case for the Monarchs starts with location. Old Dominion has scored significantly better at home than on the road this season, and Marshall shows the same home-road gap, which works against the Thundering Herd as the visitor here. Marshall arrives at 4-3 and has been reliable in close games, going 4-1 in one-score contests this season, while Old Dominion sits at 2-6 and has been outscored by 17 points per game over its last five.

Both programs carry modest overall grades, with Marshall at C- and Old Dominion at D-, and neither offense nor defense stands out nationally among FBS teams, Marshall ranked 123rd in offense and 125th in defense, Old Dominion 132nd in offense and 110th in defense. As a Sun Belt game, the result counts in the conference standings for both sides. The projection suggests the home trend outweighs the series history this time.