Marshall's sports teams are known as the Thundering Herd. The school colors are kelly green and white. Marshall participates in NCAA Division I (FBS for football) as a member of Conference USA. The name Thundering Herd came from a Zane Grey novel released in 1925, and a silent movie of the same name two years later. Marshall teams were originally known as the Indians, and the green-white colors came in 1903, replacing black and blue. The Herald-Dispatch sports editor Carl "Duke" Ridgley tagged the team with the Thundering Herd name, but many other nicknames were suggested over the next thirty years, including Boogercats, Big Green, Green Gobblers, Rams, Judges and others. In 1965, students, alums and faculty settled on Thundering Herd in a vote, and Big Green was given to the athletic department's fund-raising wing.

Sports at the school include women's softball, swimming & diving, tennis, volleyball, and track & field; men's football, baseball; and teams for both genders in basketball cross country, golf, and soccer.Marshall also fields club teams, not affiliated with the MU Athletic Department, in rugby union for both women and men, men's and women's lacrosse, and an equestrian team that competes in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association.

Football

Marshall began playing football in 1895 and has a long tradition as a football school. Their first undefeated season was in 1919, when they went 8-0 and their most recent undefeated season was in 1999 when they went 13-0 and finished ranked #10 in the country. Marshall was college football's most winningest team in the 1990s and has had 47 All-American players.

On the flip side, from 1964 to 1983, Marshall's football program suffered a dismal streak of losing seasons. Marshall had the worst record of any major college playing football in the 1970s, winning only 23 games and losing 83 over that ten-year period. The team was suspended by the Mid-American Conference in 1969 for 144 alleged recruiting violations in 1968–69 in football and basketball. While the NCAA issued a one-year probation, the MAC did not take the program back until 1972. The losing seasons were exacerbated by the 1970 plane crash that killed nearly all of the team's coaches and players. Marshall joined the Southern Conference for all sports in 1977. The football team was 0–26–1 in the first five years. MU's only non-loss came on a 59-yard field goal with no time left by freshman Barry Childers at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C., for a 13–13 tie. In 1981, Marshall won its first SC game by beating Appalachian State in Boone, N.C., 17–14. The victory celebration included a 30-mile police escort and a crowd estimated at 3,000 that met the team when they unloaded at Gullickson Hall on the Marshall University campus.

Beginning in 1984, Marshall football experienced a remarkable turnaround as Stan Parrish's first team completed a 6–5 season with a 31–28 win at East Tennessee State University. From 1984-2005 the Thundering Herd posted 21 straight winning seasons, winning the I-AA Southern Conference in 1988, 1994 and 1996, the I-AA National Championships 1987, 1991, 1993 and 1995, and the I-A Mid-American Conference in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002. Upon shifting to Conference USA the team had less celebrated success until recent years, having played in the Conference USA Championship in 2013 and winning three straight bowl games.

Basketball

Despite past conference titles and five appearances in the NCAA Tournament, men's basketball at the university was in a state of mediocrity since advancing to the NIT in 1988. Marshall finished as runner-up in its final Southern Conference tournament in 1997, losing on a last second shot by UT-Chattanooga, and made one trip to the Mid-American Conference semi-finals in 2000 before falling to Miami (Ohio). The basketball team found success with the 2007 hiring of Donnie Jones. Jones led the Herd to the postseason in 2010 in the CollegeInsider.com tournament. Jones left for UCF in the offseason, and Tom Herrion took charge of the team, and in 2011 landed in the College Basketball Invitational.

Marshall has 13 fraternities and 7 sororities.