Houston topples Temple for AAC crown
HOUSTON—Tom Herman came to Houston after helping Ohio State to a national championship last season with designs on returning the Cougars to national prominence.
Less than a year later the coach has done exactly that, leading No. 17 Houston to a high-profile bowl for the first time in more than 20 years with a 24-13 win over 20th-ranked Temple in the inaugural American Athletic Conference championship game on Saturday.
Greg Ward, Jr. ran for 148 yards and two touchdowns to secure Houston’s spot as the Group of Five representative and earn the Cougars a trip to either the Peach Bowl or Fiesta Bowl.
CUSA title game WESTERN KENTUCKY 45, SOUTHERN MISS 28
BOWLING GREEN, Ky.— Brandon Doughty finished off his final home game for Western Kentucky with something he didn’t believe was possible when he came to the school in 2011—a conference championship.
Doughty threw for 410 yards with three touchdown passes and Western Kentucky came from behind to defeat Southern Mississippi 45-28 in the Conference USA Championship Game on Saturday.
“This is just the start of our program. Winning a conference championship, I would have never thought we would have done it five or six years ago. But we did it today and it’s just the start,” Doughty said.
Doughty finished with 34 completions in 52 attempts, shaking off a first-half interception that helped put the East Division champion Hilltoppers in a 14-point first-half hole.
“I don’t think we were executing early in the game. We kind of got away from it and got caught up in the moment a little bit. We had to settle down a little bit, myself included,” Doughty said.
Big 12 KANSAS STATE 24, WEST VIRGINIA 23
MANHATTAN, Kan.—Wide receiver Cody Cook led Kansas State to a pair of touchdowns as the emergency quarterback, Morgan Burns returned a kickoff 97 yards for the go-ahead score and the Wildcats beat West Virginia 24-23 on Saturday night to become bowl-eligible.
Taking over for the injured Joe Hubener, Cook ran for a touchdown and hit Deante Burton with a 77-yard scoring strike to help the Wildcats (6-6, 3-5 Big 12) win their third straight game.
Most importantly, it gave Kansas State six wins and its sixth straight bowl berth.
Wendell Smallwood ran for 141 yards and a touchdown for West Virginia (7-5, 4-6), but he didn’t have the ball in his hands with the game on the line. Instead, quarterback Skyler Howard was stopped by Charmeachealle Moore on fourth-and-2 at their own 46 with 2:33 left to turn over the ball.
The Wildcats picked up enough first downs to essentially run out the clock.
Howard had 281 yards and a touchdown through the air, but it was his inability to pick up the key fourth down on the ground that dropped West Virginia to 0-4 against Kansas State in Big 12 play.
The Wildcats would likely have earned a bowl invite even with a defeat because there are not enough six-win teams to fill all the slots, and a few will be allocated based on Academic Progress Rate. But players said all week that they wanted to reach six wins and truly earn.