FAU’s Kiffin gets bowl win, contract extension
Alabama loses LB because of injury
BOCA RATON, Fla. — Lane Kiffin ended his first Florida Atlantic season with a flourish, with Devin Singletary running for 124 yards and three touchdowns as the Owls rolled past Akron 50-3 in the Boca Raton Bowl on Tuesday night.
Singletary finished with 32 touchdowns this season for the Owls (11-3), who ended the year on a 10-game winning streak and matched the school record for wins in a season — set during the team’s run to the Division I-AA semifinals in 2003.
Jeff Driskel threw for 270 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for two more scores for FAU.
The Owls had a massive turnaround in Kiffin’s first year and may have an even brighter future.
Earlier Tuesday, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press that FAU and Kiffin have agreed to extend his contract six more years through 2027.
Kiffin and Akron coach Terry Bowden are the sons of football coaching legends. Monte Kiffin and Bobby Bowden were both at the game and took part in the pregame coin toss.
Kato Nelson threw for 80 yards for Akron (7-7).
The game was a perfect microcosm of FAU’s season: Once the Owls got rolling, they never stopped. And Kiffin held nothing back. FAU got three touchdowns on fourth-down tries, unsuccessfully tried an onside kick in the first quarter, went for a 2-point conversion in the third quarter to make it 36-3 and even tried a halfback pass in the fourth quarter with a 47-point lead. The Owls didn’t punt on their first nine possessions, getting seven touchdowns and two missed field goals out of those.
Even on the last play of the game, FAU threw a pass — a 10-yard gain, one that gave the Owls a 582-146 edge in total yards. Only two bowl games since 2000 had a bigger margin of victory than FAU’s 47-point romp in this one.
Both teams missed field goals on their opening drive, and after that it was all FAU. Willie Wright’s 4-yard scoring grab got the Owls on the board late in the first quarter, and Driskel went in from 3 yards out midway through the second quarter to make it 14-3. Both of those scores came on long drives — one 13 plays for 79 yards, the other 14 plays for 75 yards.
MICHIGAN: Michigan has confirmed that quarterback Shea Patterson is joining the program as a transfer from Mississippi.
KILL RETIRES: Jerry Kill, a longtime coach who spent last season as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Rutgers, has retired for health reasons.
IOWA: Next week’s Pinstripe Bowl in New York could be Iowa junior cornerback Josh Jackson’s last game as a Hawkeye.
Jackson said Tuesday that he is “50-50” on whether he will come back for his senior season, adding that he will likely announce his plans for 2018 after the Hawkeyes (7-5) face Boston
College (7-5) on Dec. 27 at Yankee Stadium. ALABAMA: Freshman inside linebacker Dylan Moses is out indefinitely after suffering a foot injury in Monday’s practice. Moses has 30 tackles and 5.5 stops behind the line in 11 games.
MARYLAND: DJ Moore, who was named the Big Ten wide receiver of the year earlier this month and established himself as one of the country’s premier players at the position this fall, will skip his senior season and enter the NFL draft.
FLORIDA: Eddy Pineiro, the most accurate kicker in program history, is leaving school early and entering the NFL draft.
BOWLING GREEN: Bowling Green has hired former Florida Atlantic coach Carl Pelini to be defensive coordinator.