Outback bowl college football game

Morgan has been with Arkansas for six years through abysmal seasons and, this year, a triumphant nine-win one. He's one of the super seniors leaving the program better than he found it. He's leaving it, he said, in good hands. Coach Sam Pittman's got the Hogs going, I can promise you that. Whether you believe in momentum or not, the bowl win over Penn State carries Arkansas into the offseason with high spirits. That's more than can be said for the last four years, when Arkansas went a combined without a bowl appearance.

Pittman has expressed all season his desire to make people proud of his Arkansas program. Marcus Freeman's first game as Notre Dame coach started spectacularly for the Irish. Notre Dame jumped out to a lead at halftime, as Irish fans and former players alike were all over social media talking about how the reins had finally been taken off the offense now that Brian Kelly was gone.

Well, I guess Kelly somehow figured out a way to put them back on at halftime because the offense stalled in the second half. Spencer Sanders took the game over and led Oklahoma State on an incredible comeback.

Sanders finished with yards passing and yards rushing as the Cowboys outscored Notre Dame in the second half -- and that seven by Notre Dame is slightly misleading because it came with just over a minute left when Oklahoma State was up After the game, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said it was the biggest win in Oklahoma State history, which is a wild statement to make considering everyone is always telling you how these bowl games are meaningless.

Absolutely nothing good happens to you when it calls. Pregame ranking: 6 UCF 29, Florida 17 : Sorry, Florida fans, but you're going to be hearing about this loss for a long time. Let's not forget that UCF celebrated a fictional national title, so who knows what the Knights will do with a Gasparilla Bowl victory over the Gators. This was another game that saw the lead change hands five times. Unfortunately, none of the lead changes came in the fourth quarter. The Gators failed to make anything happen after Daniel Obarski's yard field goal gave the Knights a lead late in the third.

They had a chance to cut it to a one-score game again in the fourth, but Chris Howard's yard field goal attempt missed. A few minutes later, Obarski made a yarder to make it , and it was all she wrote for Florida. Wyoming 52, Kent State 38 : If there's one common theme among the games ranked this highly, it's that they were back-and-forth affairs.

The Potato Bowl is a perfect example. Yes, Wyoming won by two scores and there wasn't a lot of doubt about the outcome late in the game, but it was wild early.

The teams traded leads three times in the first half as Kent State took a lead into the locker room, and then Wyoming took it right back at the start of the second half. The Cowboys would never give it up, as Levi Williams threw for yards and rushed for more with five total touchdowns.

Then Williams did something we're probably going to see a lot of players doing in the future: he entered the transfer portal. Who needs tempo when you have this explosiveness. After jumping out to a point lead in the first quarter, Louisiana needed a point fourth quarter to come back and avoid the upset loss to the Thundering Herd.

It was an epic performance by Marshall running back Rasheen Ali that put the Herd in a position to win. Ali rushed for yards and three touchdowns, including a yard touchdown run in the first quarter. His third touchdown of the evening gave Marshall a lead late in the third quarter, but the Cajuns started Ragin' again in the fourth. Louisiana had four possessions in the final frame, and the first three resulted in touchdowns.

The fourth ended in victory formation. Army 24, Missouri 22 : So, I talked to a friend who went to Missouri after this game about the rough start that the SEC was off to in the bowl season. My friend quickly reminded me that with the SEC having two teams in the College Football Playoff, the rest of the conference was forced to "play up" in its bowl games.

In other words, they were getting tougher matchups than they'd typically get. I had two reactions to this. The first is that an SEC fan can find an excuse for any loss, and the second was that it has to be incredible for a service academy like Army to be seen as a "step up" for any SEC program. As for this game, while it's always somewhat of a surprise to see an SEC team lose to a service academy, it shouldn't have been given this matchup. Mizzou had one of the worst rush defenses in the country this season, and it played right into Army's hands.

While the Knights rushed for only yards in the game, they were able to control the clock and limit possessions, allowing them to hang close and come back from an early deficit. Army didn't take its first lead until early in the fourth quarter, but after Missouri scored to take a lead with left, the Knights quickly drove into field goal range. Cole Talley's yard boot as time expired sealed the victory.

Fresno State 31, UTEP 24 : Seriously, the first 48 hours of the bowl season were probably the best two days of all because, aside from the LendingTree Bowl, they were all solid games you might've noticed I haven't even ranked the Cure Bowl yet. This was another example, as the Bulldogs and Miners put on an entertaining show for us all. There were four lead changes in this game, and the largest lead either side had was a Fresno lead late in the third -- a lead that lasted all of 2 minutes before UTEP cut it to two.

UTEP would force a quick three-and-out, but its next drive ended with another fumble. Fresno ran out the clock from there. But even though UTEP lost, the Miners were still responsible for the best play of the game when they faked a QB sneak and instead tossed a yard touchdown.

What a play. I mean, not only was it the host of what might've been the greatest college football game of all time, but in the last few years alone, we've seen an incredible semifinal between Oklahoma and Georgia, a fun Ohio State win over Washington, Oregon's comeback against Wisconsin and the insanity that was this game.

Remove that game from the equation and the last five Rose Bowls have been decided by 18 points total. This game was simply incredible. Ohio State was missing several key players, Utah was without so many starters that it had to start a running back at corner, and it all led to beautiful football.

Ohio State's C. Stroud threw for yards and six touchdowns, and Jaxson Smith-Njigba rewrote the record books with 15 receptions for yards and three touchdowns. The game included a 2.

It only got better from there. Ohio State didn't take its first lead until there was left in the game, and at that point, you thought the game was over because Utah starting QB Cam Rising had been knocked out of the game with a concussion.

But it wasn't. Bryson Barnes led the Utes on a yard touchdown drive to tie the game at 45 before the Buckeyes went 56 yards to set up the game-winning, yard field goal with 9 seconds left. It was a game I never wanted to end. Pregame ranking: 3 E. Purdue 48, Tennessee 45 : There were games better than the Rose Bowl!? Yep, and the Music City Bowl was one of them! You see, as awesome as the Rose Bowl was, the Music City Bowl matched and exceeded it in a lot of ways.

Like Utah, Tennessee built a big lead early, going ahead after the first quarter. But, unlike Ohio State, Purdue didn't wait until the second half to begin its comeback, instead opting to start in the second quarter. The Boilermakers outscored Tennessee in the second to take a lead into halftime, and then each team traded the lead back and forth a couple of times in the third quarter before things really went off the rails.

Tennessee led the game after three, and the score hadn't changed through the first 9 minutes of the fourth quarter. That's when Purdue scored and went ahead A little under 90 seconds later, Tennessee scored to tie the game at Forty seconds later, Purdue scored again on a yard touchdown pass to Broc Thompson to go back ahead How did Tennessee respond?

Well, it went 72 yards in four plays and 82 seconds to tie the game and force overtime. In overtime, Jaylen Wright was, or wasn't, it depends on who you ask, stopped short of the goal line on fourth down as the refs ruled his forward progress had been stopped. Purdue then kicked the game-winning field goal. While the ending was controversial, it doesn't change the fact the game was incredibly entertaining for all neutral observers. The 1, yards of offense the teams combined for was the second-most overall in bowl history, behind only the Alamo Bowl 1, yards.

Coastal Carolina 47, Northern Illinois 41 : And so we come to the best bowl game of the postseason. I'm assuming a lot of you are perplexed about how the Cure Bowl can rank ahead of the Rose Bowl and Music City Bowl, but that's just because most of you probably didn't watch it. You should have because the second bowl game of the season was incredible.

Not only were there a bunch of points scored, but it was a one-score game the entire time. Rushing Yards. Receiving Yards. End of 4th Quarter. Raymond James Stadium. Tampa, FL. Line: ARK Jefferson was hurt and left for several plays after a yard dash later in the third period, and was replaced by Malik Hornsby. He had a yard run to set up Sanders' 1-yard score with left in the quarter. Jefferson said he had the wind knocked out of him on the play.

Hornsby had 67 yards on four carries. Penn State led at the half thanks to a yard field goal by Jake Pinegar. The Nittany Lions tied it at 7 early in the second quarter when Clifford took advantage of blown coverage and hit a wide open KeAndre Lambert-Smith for a yard touchdown. I wouldn't say I'm frustrated, we just have to take this loss to heart and work harder in the offseason to get better next season," Lambert-Smith said. We had to play better and execute better.

Arkansas took a lead on the last play of the first quarter when Sanders had a 3-yard TD run. The Razorbacks converted a pair of fourth-down plays during the drive, including Jefferson avoiding a sack and running for 13 yards. Both teams were impacted by bowl opt outs. I respect that big time. Jefferson had his streak of consecutive passes without an interception end when Ji' Ayir Brown picked off his second throw of the game in the first quarter.