BYU vs. Memphis: Score and Twitter Reaction for 2014 Miami Beach Bowl

Thrown in the mid-afternoon on the Monday before Christmas, you could have forgiven BYU and Memphis for sluggishly sleepwalking their way through their Miami Beach Bowl experience. Instead, they provided a 55-48, double-overtime matinee that vacillated between thrilling and baffling and will go down as the biggest nail-biter of the early bowl season.    

Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch hit Roderick Proctor for an 11-yard touchdown reception, and BYU quarterback Christian Stewart was intercepted on the subsequent drive as Memphis earned the victory to take home the 2014 Miami Beach Bowl. 

Hosted at Miami's Marlins Park, the inaugural Beach Bowl is one of a record 39 bowl games this season. It's also the first football game hosted at the Miami Marlins' home stadium, giving an appropriately cartoonish backdrop to a game that featured bad coaching errors, officiating gaffes and a sidelines-clearing brawl.

With tempers high following Stewart's game-clinching interception, an all-out fight saw players from both sides throw punches and even some teammates on BYU's side getting into it with one another. At least one BYU player was bloodied, and there were helmets thrown in both directions. 

"That's not who we are," Memphis head coach Justin Fuente said on ESPN after the game. "I'm upset. I hope it doesn't take away from an unbelievable football game. There will be a lesson taught. We have to learn how to handle success too and act the right way."

On the field, Memphis was able to overcome the odds to force overtime and send it to a second. 

Down 45-38 with 2:34 remaining in regulation, the Tigers took over at the BYU 33-yard line and made it to the end zone in eight plays, twice converting on do-or-die fourth-down plays. Lynch's five-yard touchdown pass to Keiwone Malone came after a lengthy, multi-second dropback and helped set up some of the most confounding clock management in recent history from BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall.

With 45 seconds remaining on the clock and all three timeouts, Mendenhall strangely decided to waste not one, but two timeouts in an attempt to ice the extra-point attempt. Memphis kicker Jake Elliott nailed the extra point without incident, and the Cougars' poor time management came back to bite them when they were forced into a first-down Hail Mary from their own 37.

Elliott again came through in the clutch during overtime, knocking down a 54-yard field goal after BYU pushed Memphis 12 yards in the opposite direction.

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Buoyed by a steady stream of big plays from Stewart, BYU went into halftime with a 28-24 lead. Stewart threw for 246 of his 348 yards before the break, including three touchdown passes. Mitchell Juergens accounted for all 87 of his receiving yards in the first 30 minutes, most notably a 47-yard touchdown grab for BYU's first score.

While entertaining for the duration, neither BYU nor Memphis turned in its most controlled performance. The two sides combined for nine turnovers, with both quarterbacks gifting short fields to their opponent. Stewart was picked off three times, and Lynch was markedly more mistake-prone as the game progressed.

Lynch's third interception gave BYU its 45-38 lead, as Zac Stout waltzed into the end zone from 19 yards out. That touchdown capped off a comeback from 10 points down by the Cougars, who were able to stop just about everyone but Lynch for most of the game. 

The sophomore accounted for each of Memphis' seven touchdowns, throwing for 306 yards and four scores while adding three more on the ground. It was his fourth 300-yard game of the season. 

“He still has a lot of work left to do, physically and mentally and maturity-wise,” Fuente told reporters last month, per The Commercial Appeal's Phil Stukenborg. “But he’s coming along and I think he feels better every time out.”

Malone was Lynch's favorite target, making six receptions for 75 yards and two touchdowns.

With the win, Memphis caps a surprisingly stellar 2014 campaign. The Tigers captured their first winning season since Tommy West's 2007 team that lost in the New Orleans Bowl. The victory Monday gives them their first 10-win season since 1938. 

"That's an ongoing pursuit," Memphis head coach Justin Fuente told The Associated Press (via KSL.com) of raising his program's profile. "We're always trying to improve the program, improve the facilities, improve our budgets in order to try and get to that level. I certainly hope and think that winning helps."

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

BYU remains in a murkier spot. Since becoming an independent in 2011, Mendenhall's team has slowly faded toward near-obscurity. After leading Top 25 outfits in four of his first five seasons, Mendenhall has been held out of the final Associated Press poll for a half-decade running.

While there have been near-constant rumors about BYU joining the Big 12, it appears the program has settled into a shrug-worthy stasis while it awaits the invite. The return of explosive (and oft-injured) quarterback Taysom Hill next season will help, but Mendenhall will need to right the ship soon to keep the program attractive enough for a Power Five suitor.

Otherwise Miami Beach Bowl losses could become the new normal in Provo.  

Follow Tyler Conway (@tyleconway22) on Twitter.