Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Quick ’n’ easy
Blazers score on 70-yard pass on first play from scrimmage, crush NIU
BOCA RATON — Thanks to career games from redshirt freshman quarterback Tyler Johnston III and senior receiver Xavier Ubosi, the dream season for UAB was completed Tuesday night.
In one of only three postseason bowl games featuring two conference champions — and the only one that’s not part of the New Year’s Six — Alabama-Birmingham dominated Northern Illinois, 37-13, in the Boca Raton Bowl at FAU Stadium.
Johnston threw for four touchdowns — three of them to Ubosi, who was named the game’s Offensive MVP. Johnston’s 373 passing yards and Ubosi’s 227 receiving yards were both Boca Raton Bowl game records.
In its second year since its return to college football after a two-year hiatus, UAB (11-3) finished a season in which it also won a Conference USA title with a schoolrecord 11 wins.
NIU (8-6), champions of the Mid-American Conference, lost the Boca Raton Bowl for the second time, having also dropped the inaugural game to Marshall in 2014.
Leading the nation in sacks, the Huskies were held without one by the UAB offensive line.
Blazers running back Spencer Brown had 78 yards on 25 carries. NIU quarterback Marcus Childers was 22 of 29 for 179
yards. The UAB defense kept NIU to 2.5 yards per carry.
The fireworks started for UAB right away with Johnston hitting Ubosi deep down the right sideline for a 70-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage.
On the Blazers’ second possession, they went 70 yards again, but over 13 plays that took 5:41. UAB settled for a 25-yard field goal from Nick Vogel to go up, 10-0.
NIU responded late in the first quarter. Tre Harbison, who surpassed 1,000 rushing yards on the season Tuesday, plunged into the end zone from one yard out to cap a nine-play, 59-yard drive and put the Huskies within three at, 10-7.
Johnston was back at it after that and hooked up with running back Spencer Brown for a 3-yard touchdown early in the second quarter.
NIU got three of those points back as they were stopped in the red zone and Andrew Gantz made a 27-yard field goal.
Then Johnston and Ubosi connected again — from 46 yards out — to put UAB up, 24-10. The Blazers got the ball back quickly as Tre’ Crawford recovered a Marcus Childers fumble. It led to another field goal before half, from 35 yards out, and UAB led, 27-10, at halftime.
They did it again for 66 yards on another go route deep down the sideline in the third quarter that put the Blazers up, 34-14.
Vogel, the UAB kicker, was 3 for 3 on kicks. His 42-yarder toward the end of the third quarter set a Boca Raton Bowl record for the game’s longest.
UAB cornerback D.A. Williams was carted off the field after an apparent head injury in the first quarter.
He collided with NIU receiver Dennis Robinson’s knee, going at his legs to break up a pass to him in the flat. There was about a five-minute delay as Williams was attended to. Robinson is a local product, coming from Hollywood’s South Broward High.
Williams was sent to Boca Raton Regional Hospital, according to a UAB spokesperson.
UAB senior linebacker Kylen Binn, who had eight tackles, was ejected for targeting in the third quarter in his final college game. Zac Williams had two sacks for UAB. Anthony Rush, a nose tackle who had five tackles, one and a half for loss and a sack, was Defensive MVP.
Before FAU’s 50-3 victory over Akron last year, Western Kentucky, Toledo and Marshall won the first three Boca Raton Bowl games.