College Football: New Year's Bowl Recap and Game Attended

Catch your breath everyone, both of the inaugural College Football Playoff matchups are in the books. Now we can relax until the night of Jan. 12, when either Oregon or Ohio State are crowned as the 2015 national champion in Arlington, Texas.

The Rose Bowl was anticipated to be one of the best games of the bowl season, with Heisman quarterbacks Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston squaring off, but the Ducks proved why they were deserving of their No. 2 ranking. They took a close 18-13 lead into the half, but they exploded in the second half by outscoring Florida State 41-7 in a 59-20 blowout to ruin its 29-game win streak.

Oregon set a Rose Bowl record with the most points scored and caused five Seminole turnovers in the second half. Marcus Mariota, who finished the game with 338 passing yards and three total touchdowns, helped a lethal Oregon offense rack up 639 total yards of offense and will lead his team to a second national championship game in five years.

Urban Meyer versus Nick Saban lived up to the hype with the game ending on an intercepted last-second Hail Mary pass by Alabama quarterback Blake Sims, which gave Ohio State a 42-35 upset victory to advance to its first national championship since 2008.

The Crimson Tide took a 21-6 lead in the second quarter, but the Buckeyes battled back to get two touchdowns in the remaining three minutes of the first half to trail only 21-20.

Ohio State third-string sophomore quarterback Cardale Jones would then connect with Devin Smith for a 47-yard touchdown early in the third quarter, and the Buckeyes took a solid 34-21 lead when Steven Miller returned a 41-yard interception for a touchdown. The Buckeyes scored 28 unanswered points, before Alabama answered on a Sims five-yard touchdown run with 1:01 left in the third quarter. 

The Crimson Tide tried to hang in the game, but the defense couldn’t catch explosive running back Ezekiel Elliott late in regulation, when he raced for an 85-yard touchdown run. Ezekiel finished the game with 230 yards and two touchdowns, breaking a Sugar Bowl rushing record.

While much of the focus was on the College Football Playoff, there were wild finishes in both the Outback and Cotton Bowl. Interim head coach and current Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez earned another win over Auburn in a New Year’s bowl game, with his last being in the Capital One Bowl back in 2006. It took overtime for Wisconsin to come away with a 34-31 win, which was its first bowl win since 2009.

Heisman Trophy runner-up Melvin Gordon had another impressive performance for the Badgers, as he recorded 34 carries for 251 yards and three touchdowns. Gordon broke an Outback Bowl record and also moved into second place for rushing yards in a single season with 2,587 yards.

In Arlington, fifth-ranked Baylor appeared to be on the verge of winning its biggest bowl game in recent memory. Then it failed to close out a tough eighth-ranked Michigan State squad that scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.

A blocked Chris Callahan 43-yard field goal, which was returned by the Spartans for 36 yards to the Baylor 45-yard line, was the turning point late in the fourth quarter.

Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook would eventually lead an eight-play drive and complete a 10-yard touchdown pass to Keith Mumphery with 17 seconds remaining to give the Spartans the go-ahead score and a 42-41 Cotton Bowl victory.

Game Attended: Fiesta Bowl, No. 10 Arizona 30 vs. No. 20 Boise State 38

It turned into one of the most exciting Big Six games of the bowl season, with an Arizona second-half comeback that fell just short on a final drive in Boise State’s red zone as time expired. The game didn’t start close though, as Boise State opened its first three drives with touchdowns to take a 21-0 lead.

Running back Jay Ajayi rushed for a 56-yard touchdown and also scored on 16-yard run on a well-executed Statue of Liberty play. Quarterback Grant Hedrick, who completed his first 14 passes and finished the first half 17-of-18 for 272 yards, also pitched in with a 57-yard touchdown pass to Chaz Anderson. 

The Wildcats would eventually score late in the first quarter on a one-yard run by Anu Solomon to cut the deficit to 21-7.

Ajayi was able to find the end zone for a third time on a one-yard run early in the second quarter, but Arizona would find its way back into the game with a Nick Wilson one-yard rushing touchdown and a Casey Skowron 42-yard field goal with 30 seconds left in the second quarter.

Boise State did answer on a four-play drive though, which consisted of big plays from Hedrick to wide receiver Thomas Sperbeck and resulted in a Dan Goodale 36-yard field goal with three seconds remaining in the second quarter. Boise State would go into the half with a 31-17 lead. 

The second half favored the Wildcats, as they outscored the Broncos 13-7. Arizona’s defense, headed by Scooby Wright and Tra’Mayne Bondurant, held a Boise State offense that had racked up 397 yards of offense in the first half to only two total yards in the third quarter.

Despite having success, Solomon managed to throw an interception into the hands of Boise State cornerback Donte Deayon for a 16-yard pick-six with 1:57 left in the third quarter. That turned out to be the difference-maker, as Arizona was unable to come down the field in the final minutes and tie the game to force overtime.

Boise State moved to 3-0 all time in the Fiesta Bowl and achieved its sixth 12-win season since 2006.