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HUNTINGTON, West Virginia (Ticker) -- Hold those Heisman Trophy ballots. Chad Pennington used his legs and then his golden right arm to rally No. 11 Marshall to an amazing second-half comeback, saving a perfect season with a 34-30 victory over Western Michigan in the Mid-American Conference championship game. The Thundering Herd (12-0) are going to the Motor City Bowl to play Brigham Young, but would have missed out on the postseason entirely had they lost this game. Down 20-0 at the half and 30-27 with seven seconds left, an otherwise storybook season was on the line. On the final drive, Pennington converted a 4th-and-6 with a short pass to James Williams, then put Marshall in position for the potential game-tying field goal with a 33-yard run up the left sideline. Strong safety William Reed hit Pennington out of bounds on the play and the personal foul penalty moved the ball to the Broncos 14 with 51 seconds left. Marshall advanced to the 1 and faced a third down with seven seconds remaining. Pennington rolled right and found tight end Eric Pinkerton wide open in the end zone for the winning score. "We had three options on that play," Pennington said. "We did a good job on a play fake and he got open. It could not have happened to a better person. That is a fairy tale ... that it happened to Pinkerton because he has been moved around. Man, I am so happy for him." Fans stormed the field and ripped down the goal post in seconds. "We are 12-0 and nobody can argue that," Pennington said of his team, which missed out on a lucrative Bowl Championship Series game despite doing all it could with the weak MAC schedule. "We did what all great championship teams do -- we found a way to win." Pennington completed 20-of-31 passes for 284 yards and three touchdowns -- all in the second half -- while throwing one interception. His 37 touchdown passes lead the nation and are two short of his total in 1997, when Randy Moss starred for Marshall. In his collegiate career, Pennington threw 115 touchdown passes, including 100 as a Division I-A quarterback, and is tied for seventh on the NCAA's all-division's list. He is fourth on the all-divisions list with 13,143 passing yards and his 1,026 completions are five shy of the career record set earlier this season by Louisville's Chris Redman. Tim Lester was 27-of-41 for 282 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions for Western Michigan (7-5), which will miss out on a bowl game and lost its third straight game. Two of those defeats were to Marshall. "Obviously, a lot of pain involved because when you put that much into it," Broncos coach Gary Darnell said. "This team, this senior class over the last three years has brought Western Michigan to this point right now and I guess for anything to have this much pain to deal with, to play what I truly believe is a top-10 football team like that, my heart breaks for them." Robert Sanford carried 32 times for 163 yards, the most this year against the stingy Marshall defense, and Steve Neal had 105 yards on eight catches, helping the Broncos put up a 276-133 first-half advantage in total yards. But the Thundering Herd turned it around to a 265-183 edge in the second half. "Our defense has always picked up the offense and our offense has picked our defense up," Pennington said. "Believe me, there was never any doubt in any of our minds that we could not come back and win this game." "At halftime we went in and I told our offense and our coaches that we were going to come in an go no-huddle and try to change the tempo of the game and get the crowd back into the game and get our rhythm going and get them off rhythm," Herd coach Bob Pruett said. "I felt if we could do that, we could start scoring and our defense would key off it." The Thundering Herd have won the MAC and its Motor City Bowl berth in each of their three seasons at the Division I-A level. The former I-AA powerhouse was 10-3 in 1997, losing in the Motor City Bowl, and went 12-1 with a bowl win last season. Marshall's 16-game winning streak is the longest in major college football. It was only its third win in the last 19 meetings with Western Michigan, which still holds a 21-9 lead in the overall series. Pennington finally got the Marshall offense going with 4:56 left in the third quarter, hitting Nate Poole with a 38-yard TD pass. Doug Chapman's 24-yard scoring run 2:19 later and Pennington's 16-yard scoring strike to Williams just 84 seconds thereafter closed the Herd within 23-20 and whipped the crowd into a frenzy. "The last thing I told them was, 'Guys, you're not carrying yourself like you think you can win,'" Pruett said. "I said, 'Fellas, before we go out there you gotta believe we can win this game.'" Williams had 94 yards on seven catches and Poole added 86 on five. Chapman ran two yards for a touchdown with 12:36 left to give Marshall its first lead at 27-23. But Western Michigan made a final surge on offense and Lester gave the Broncos a 30-27 edge with 7:20 remaining with a four-yard TD toss to tight end Jake Moreland. "We knew they were going to answer, and we answered back, but they answered one more time than we did and the clock ran out on us," Darnell said. Lester got things going 8:13 into the game with a 16-yard TD pass to Corey Alston and Brad Selent made it 10-0 with a 31-yard field goal with 37 seconds left in the quarter. Sanford's one-yard touchdown plunge with 9:48 left in the second quarter and Selent's 32-yard field goal on the last play of the half made it 20-0. Selent booted a 36-yarder with 8:34 left in the third quarter to keep the Marshall Stadium crowd silent and make it a 23-point game. "It would have been easy to quit, but we fought back and I was proud of Robert and the way we marched down the field and scored," Lester said. "We were able to move the ball down the field because our offensive line played the game of the year for them. They opened the holes for Robert and they were able to give me time to scramble a little bit. They were the difference in allowing us to move the ball."
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