Tulane late rally stuns USC
Green Wave score 16 in final 4:07 of game
Tulane tight end Alex Bauman caught a 6-yard touchdown from Michael Pratt with nine seconds left to cap a frantic finish by the 14th-ranked Green Wave in a 46-45 win over Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and No. 8 Southern California in the Cotton Bowl at Arlington, Texas on Monday.
Bauman's contested catch, with linebacker Eric Gentry draped over him, was initially ruled an incompletion, but a replay review showed the ball never touched the ground as the players rolled over in the end zone. The Green Wave scored 16 points in the final 4:07, the game-winning touchdown coming after they got the ball back following a safety.
“I might have had a heart attack,” Tulane coach Willie Fritz said moments after the game ended.
Williams was 37-for-52 passing for 462 yards and a Cotton Bowl-record five touchdowns, exactly one month after the quarterback suffered a hamstring injury in USC's loss to Utah in the Pac-12 championship game that kept the Trojans from the four-team College Football Playoff.
Tyjae Spears ran for 205 yards and his career-best fourth touchdown started the final scoring surge for the Green Wave (12-2).
Rose Bowl
Penn State 35, Utah 21 — KeAndre Lambert-Smith had the longest touchdown reception in Rose Bowl history on an 88yard pass from Sean Clifford, freshman Nicholas Singleton broke a tiebreaking 87-yard touchdown run, and the No. 9 the Nittany Lions (11-2) rallied past the No. 7 Utes (10-4) in the 109th Granddaddy of Them All in Pasadena, Calif.
Clifford passed for 279 yards and two touchdowns in an impressive farewell, and Singleton rushed for 120 yards and two more scores in just the third Rose Bowl to be rained on since 1955.
Singleton broke through Utah’s defensive front and outran the secondary for his second touchdown early in the third quarter. Lambert-Smith then got open deep and eluded Utah’s defensive backs on the first snap of the fourth quarter.
Utah couldn't rally with quarterback Cameron Rising sidelined by a secondhalf knee injury for the second straight Rose Bowl, as Penn State got stops on the Utes' first six drives of the second half.
It was the final edition of the Rose Bowl guaranteed to feature its traditional matchup between Pac-12 and Big Ten.
Citrus Bowl
LSU 63, Purdue 7 — Malik Nabers threw for a touchdown, caught one, and had 163 yards receiving in the No. 16 Tigers (10-4) romp in Orlando. LSU never trailed, recording 594 yards of offense and concluding the scoring with Quad Wilson’s 99-yard interception return for a touchdown. LSU finished with 10 wins for the first time since the 2019 season.
ReliaQuest Bowl
Mississippi State 19, Illinois 10 — Massimo Biscardi made a 27-yard tiebreaking field goal with four seconds left, Marcus Banks returned a fumble 60 yards for a touchdown on the game’s last play and No. 24 Mississippi State rallied in the Bulldogs’ first game since coach Mike Leach’s death.
Banks’s score came on Illinois’ fifth lateral following a completed pass after the Fighting Ilini got the ball at their 29. There was a scrum on the field as the game ended, but order was restored after a couple of minutes.