Utah wins Las Vegas Bowl 35-28 as BYU comeback falls short

The first weekend of bowl games pits BYU against Utah in the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl on December 19th at 3:30 p.m. EST.

Whittingham thinks that his team his team had its fair share of highs and lows, but in the end, only cares that his team got the win. College football’s bowl season promises to bring some of the most interesting and entertaining match ups we’ve seen all year.

“Even though our offensive numbers were not good at all, we took care of the football”.

“Big picture-wise, this is just a start for us”, Davie said.

New Mexico quarterback Lamar Jordan rushed for three touchdowns and threw a 92-yard touchdown pass to Delane Hart-Johnson before leaving the game in the third quarter with a knee injury.

Fellow senior Tevin Carter was the star of the defense, recording two interceptions, one which he returned for a touchdown as the defense had a total of five takeaways all on the first five BYU possessions of the game.

The athletes who remain said that it’s tough to know it was the close of this particular chapter.

Mendenhall is the coach whose emotions could have conceivably compelled him to punch a wall at the start of the game. Speculation arose that perhaps BYU was waiting for the bowl game against the Utes, so that the Cougars could then make a run at Utah’s head coach Kyle Whittingham.

In the teams’ first meeting since 2013, Utah’s win extended its Holy War lead to 58-34-4 in a series dating back to 1896 (today’s game was the first outside of Provo or Salt Lake City). “This will be the first time this rivalry game has taken place in a bowl setting so it has some historic significance as well as being a great matchup between two teams that have had outstanding seasons”.

-This is the first time Cougar running back Harvey Langi will be facing his former team since transferring from Utah in 2014.

Jared Baker ran for 107 yards and three touchdowns, and Cayleb Jones had 182 yards receiving and a touchdown. BYU (9-4) couldn’t get the ball back, though, losing in Bronco Mendenhall’s last game after 11 years as coach.

“All credit goes to my teammates”, Carter said. A win would be his 100th since taking over as head coach for the Cougars back in 2005. BYU had scored two touchdowns to open the half and steal all the momentum, and for a moment you thought this fake punt would put the final nail in BYU’s coffin. With four starters back, including all-star RT J.J. Dielman, Utah could sport one of the Pac-12’s top O-lines.

The defense’s three interceptions gave the Utes 22 on the season, which is the most Utah has earned since 1979.

San Jose State 27, Georgia State 16: At Orlando, Florida, Kenny Potter scored on a 42-yard run and threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Josh Oliver in San Jose State’s comeback victory over Georgia State in the inaugural Cure Bowl.

“We got complacent”, Whittingham said. “It was our defense flying around, getting great pressure on the quarterback”. “Our team works hard”.

In what will go down as one of the strangest games of this bowl season, Utah jumped out to a 35-point first-quarter lead in the Las Vegas Bowl against rival BYU, then spent the final three quarters trying to hang on as its offense repeatedly stalled. On that day, Jim McMahon and the Cougars responded with 21 points in the final 240 seconds to win 46-45 in one of the most memorable bowl games in college football history.

After a forgettable first quarter, BYU dominated the statistics, outgaining Utah 386 to 197 in total yards and 315 to 71 in the throwing game.