The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
USC COMES UP ROSES
USC running back Ronald Jones II, left, celebrates with De’Quan Hampton, right, and Damien Mama after scoring during the second half of the Rose Bowl against Penn State on Monday in Pasadena, Calif. The Trojans rallied for a 52-49 win.
Matt Boermeester kicked a 46-yard field goal as time expired, and No. 9 Southern California rallied from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter for a spectacular 52-49 victory over No. 5 Penn State on Monday night in Pasadena, California, in the highest-scoring Rose Bowl ever played.
Freshman Sam Darnold passed for 453 yards and five touchdowns while leading a jaw-dropping comeback for the Trojans (10-3), who won their ninth consecutive game.
Deontay Burnett caught a tying 27-yard TD pass from Darnold with 1:20 to play, capping an 80-yard drive in 38 seconds with no timeouts available.
Cotton Bowl
NO. 8 WISCONSIN 24, NO. 12 WESTERN MICHIGAN 16 >> At Arlington, Texas, Wisconsin tight end Troy Fumagalli made a leaping 8-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter and the Badgers denied Western Michigan an undefeated season.
The TD catch by Fumagalli with 14 minutes left, in the back of the end zone between two defenders, came three plays after a rare interception thrown by Zach Terrell and made it 24-10.
With their “Row The Boat” mentality inspired by young head coach P.J. Fleck, the 12thranked Broncos (13-1) made it from one win during his first season in Kalamazoo three years ago to the last FBS team other than No. 1 Alabama this season with a chance to be undefeated.
“Told them I was very proud of them, how much I love them, and the effort they gave,” Fleck said about what he told his team on the sideline just before the end of the game. “We will continue to learn from this. We will embrace our past to create our future, and it just wasn’t enough tonight.”
Outback Bowl
NO. 20 FLORIDA 30, NO. 21 IOWA 3>> At Tampa, Florida, Austin Appleby threw for 222 yards and two touchdowns, helping Florida end a two-game losing streak with a rout of Iowa.
Mark Thompson scored on an 85-yard pass play in the first half and Appleby, a graduate transfer who spent the past four seasons at Purdue, tossed a 6-yard TD pass to DeAndre Goolsby to break the game open late in the third quarter. Chauncey Gardner, Jr., returned the first of his two fourth-quarter interceptions 58 yards for a 24-3 lead.