Washington State beats Miami 20-14 in snowy Sun Bowl

STATE won its first bowl game since 2003, surviving a second-half snowstorm Saturday as the Cougars rode their defense to a 20-14 win over Miami in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Tex. Miami has lost its five last postseason games.

Teams playing in the Sun Bowl in recent seasons often have brought long bowl droughts with them and left them at the border, and this year’s game between Miami and Washington State will continue the trend.

Miami has given up an average of only 196.3 pass yards per game, boasts the nation’s 39-ranked pass efficiency defense and has a future National Football League cornerback in junior Artie Burns, who ranks eighth nationally with six interceptions on the season.

“The challenging part isn’t to make the play but instead it’s to be consistent when you are battling some of that. We’ll figure all that out here as it goes”.

The Hurricanes have not won a bowl game since 2006. And two plays later, running back Mark Walton fumbled the ball inside the 5-yard line. On the next play, quarterback Brad Kaaya threw left to Coley for a TD that could’ve given the Hurricanes the lead, but it was called back for a block-in-the-back penalty. The first quarter ended 7-7, but the Cougars ran off 13 straight points in the second. And early on, the defense had a hard time containing Washington State and quarterback Luke Falk, who completed 16-of-27 passes for 176 yards and two touchdowns in the game’s first two quarters, helping Washington State build a 20-7 lead. It started with a tour of the Close Combat Tactical Training Center, where the players got the chance to get up close and personal with military vehicles like Abrams tanks and Bradley vehicles.

Miami had some success getting the ball into Washington State territory, particularly in the fourth quarter, but turned three drives inside the Cougars’ 30 into only seven points.

“At the end of the day, there’s no moral victories”, said UM interim coach Larry Scott, who will be replaced by Mark Richt. A new (and great) head coach, a new OC, a few commits and decommits, just to name a few. Poor offensive line play led to a punt, and penalties on defense gifted Washington State two first downs on third down throws. Washington State took a 20-7 lead into halftime with a 25-yard field goal by Powell. The two were co-stars in high school only to see Watkins become a freshmen sensation at Clemson while Crawford methodically worked his way up the depth chart at running back for two seasons. That’s right, Yearby took the toss from Kaaya and threw a last-minute interception. “We just didn’t finish a couple plays that could have made a difference in the game”.

Washington 41, Southern Miss 31: At Dallas, Myles Gaskin broke a third-quarter tie with an 86-yard run and had a season-high 181 yards and four touchdowns.

I read something about Miami and its sorry run defense, which allows 210 rushing yards a game, 13th in the ACC. Hopefully the Cougs can take advantage of that too with Gerard Wicks, Jamal Morrow and Keith Harrington finding room to run to complement the Air Raid offense. Scott overcame adversity and led all Miami receivers in yards with 75-yards.