The college football bowl season continued with some exciting matchups this past week as a pair of prominent teams earned bowl wins that were a long time in the making, another 5-7 team proved its critics wrong and a legendary head coach went out in style with a big victory. Here is a look at the most significant college football news and notes from this past week in college football.
Beamer Goes Out In Style
Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer went out on top with the Hokies beating Tulsa 55-52 in a shootout to this year’s Independence Bowl. The 69-year-old capped off an impressive 29-year tenure with a game that featured a record-107 combined points between these teams with Virginia Tech surviving a late rally to hold on for the victory. It was the perfect finale to an incredible career for Beamer with former Memphis head coach Justin Fuente now set to take the reins for the Hokies. It’s also an interesting result as most people were expecting a low-scoring, defensive contest. The Hokies are typically built around defense first but Fuente is an offensive-minded head coach. The fact that the Hokies were able to score 55 points in this spot could speak about the offensive tools that Fuent is left to work with. With Bud Foster agreeing to remain on as the team’s defensive coordinator, the Hokies might be able to maintain their strong defensive play but improve on offense, and then return to the upper echelon of the ACC.
Wazzu Finally Gets Bowl Win
The Hyundai Sun Bowl didn’t have much sun but the rainy conditions played into Washington State’s favor as they secured their first bowl win under head coach Mike Leach with a 20-14 victory over Miami. It marked the Cougars’ first bowl win since 2003 and that importance of the victory cannot be overstated as Washington State gets a tremendous momentum boost heading in to an important offseason period. With quarterback Luke Falk entering his fourth year and Leach doing a tremendous job recruiting talent on both sides of the football the Cougars have to feel happy about the direction they are headed in following a huge bowl victory.
5-7 Teams Improve To 2-0
For all of the talk about the 5-7 teams that were supposedly undeserving of playing in a bowl game, it’s worth pointing out at this time that those teams are now 2-0 this postseason following Nebraska’s 37-29 win over UCLA in the Foster Farms Bowl on Saturday. The Huskers scored 30 straight points after falling behind 21-7 and showed the college football world that they deserved the opportunity at redemption with a comeback win that provided some optimism following a disappointing Big Ten season. It looked like they really relished the opportunity to play for a bowl game whereas UCLA just felt like they deserved something a little bigger and better. As a result, Cornhuskers just wanted it more.
Blue Devils Win Bowl After Disputed Field Goal
The Duke Blue Devils secured their first bowl victory in 54 years with a 44-41 overtime win over Indiana but it wasn’t without at least a little bit of controversy as a potential game-tying score from the Hoosiers was ruled no good after the field goal sailed high over the right upright. Indiana head coach Kevin Wilson talked about his team’s errors as the reason they lost and didn’t blame the call on the field goal but the replay angles of the kick showed it was an extremely close call. Duke will move on and celebrate its first bowl victory since the 1961 Cotton Bowl and considering they had lost three straight bowl games over the last three years they had to be ecstatic about finally breaking through with a win regardless of the final call.
