Miami Beach Bowl, Western Kentucky vs South Florida, 45-35: Full highlights

Miami’s own Nicholas Norris led all Hilltopper pass-catchers with 120 receiving yards on five receptions, catching touchdown passes of 55 and 69 yards early in the third to ignite the once-stagnant offense.

Western Kentucky quarterback Brandon Doughty, front right, hugs South Florida head coach Willie Taggart after the Miami Beach Bowl NCAA college football game Monday, Dec. 21, 2015, in Miami.

The 12 wins this season see Western Kentucky, which went 0-12 during the 2009 season, tying the program record for victories after finishing the 2002 campaign with a 12-3 record.

Western Kentucky (12-2) finished its season on a six-game winning streak.

But Anthony Wales’ second touchdown of the day, a 42-yard run with 5:05 left, helped seal it for the Hilltoppers.

USF extended it’s lead the following drive with a 34-yard rushing score by junior receiver Rodney Adams.

At the helm is quarterback Brandon Doughty, who threw for 4,594 yards on the season, the second most in the country. The Bulls, who are averaging 21.1 points against, will test Western Kentucky’s offense with linebacker Auggie Sanchez (106 tackles), safety Jamie Byrd (80 tackles, five sacks) and first-team All-AAC corner Deatrick Nichols (four interceptions) leading the way.

The Bulls have a solid back in Marlon Flowers, but dual-threat quarterback Quinton Flowers is also a big threat.

“A lot of teams didn’t give me a chance”, Doughty said.

Doughty redshirted his freshman season in 2010, played sparingly in 2011 and 2012 in large part because of injuries (and eventually got a sixth year of eligibility because of that), then took over as the full-fledged starter in 2013. The Hilltoppers reached the end zone on their first four second half drives – three Doughty TD passes and a Nacarius Fant run – while the Bulls did their best to keep up the pace.

Howard Schnellenberger: The former University of Louisville and Miami University coach arrived early and greeted fans and WKU football coach Jeff Brohm before Monday’s Miami Beach Bowl. It was the running backs who accounted for most of South Florida’s scoring in this contest. He rushed for 108 yards and two touchdowns, but suffered inconsistency in the passing game (14 of 32, 273 yards).

1 Senior P Mattias Ciabatti and reserve LB Tashon Whitehurst saw their USF careers come to a premature conclusion after both were held out of the game for violating team rules. South Florida was scoring at will to end the year and the Hilltoppers always score at will… Brandon Doughty, the Hilltoppers’ show star quarterback, completed just one pass for greater than 9 yards in this span, misfired badly on quite a couple of passes & threw a hesitant decide as WKU was driving. “We knew we were going to make the plays”.

Taggart said facing his old program was “really like another game, ” but he acknowledged that Doughty was a more-than-capable opponent.