Daniels, Pickens lead Georgia rout
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Georgia quarterback JT Daniels is confident that wherever he throws the football, George Pickens will catch it.
Daniels threw three touchdown passes, two of them to Pickens, as the No. 12 Bulldogs broke away from Missouri to win 49-14 on Saturday in a matchup of Southeastern Conference East Division teams.
“I’ll never overthrow George,” Daniels said. “I’ll always throw it up and give him a chance. A 50-50 ball with George is an 80-20 ball.”
Zamir White ran for 126 yards and a score, and Georgia (7-2) dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Missouri (5-4) managed just 200 yards of offense after topping the 600-yard mark each of the past two weeks.
“I think Missouri’s a good football team — I really do — and they’re a team that’s growing, young, getting better, and we were able to overpower them in the second half,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said.
Smart said his players had great practices Monday and Tuesday despite being eliminated last weekend from contention for the SEC championship game. East champ Florida and West winner Alabama, the two teams that have beaten the Bulldogs during the all-SEC regular season, will play for the league title next Saturday night in Atlanta. Georgia is scheduled to host Vanderbilt earlier that day.
Georgia and Missouri were tied at 14 when Pickens reached to his shoetops to gather in a 36-yard touchdown toss from Daniels in the final minute of the first half. The pair connected again on the first drive of the second half, with Pickens catching a short pass on a slant route, stepping out of a tackle attempt and racing 31 yards for a score. Daniels completed 16 of 27 passes for 299 yards, Pickens had five catches for 126 yards, and running back James Cook caught a touchdown pass and rushed for a score.
Missouri’s Mason Pack blocked a punt deep in Georgia territory to set up Larry Rountree’s 1-yard touchdown run that made it 14-all with 1:20 left in the second quarter.
Rountree, who had rushed for more than 180 yards in each of the last two games against Vanderbilt and Arkansas, managed just 16 yards on 14 carries.
Connor Bazelak completed 17 of 28 passes for 139 yards and ran for the Tigers’ other score.
› Army 15, Navy 0
WEST POINT, N.Y. — Tyhier Tyler scored on a 4-yard run early in the fourth quarter after the Army defense stoned Navy with a goal-line stand in the third, and the Black Knights beat their archrival at fog-shrouded Michie Stadium.
It was the first meeting between the teams at West Point since 1943. The game was moved to Michie Stadium from its customary site in Philadelphia because COVID-19 regulations in Pennsylvania would not have allowed the Corps of Cadets and Brigade of Midshipmen to attend.
The Black Knights (8-2), who posted their first shutout in the series since a 27-0 victory in 1969, have won four of their past five meetings with Navy (3-7). They had lost all three games played previously at West Point to the Midshipmen, including 13-0 in 1943 during World War II. Navy still leads the series, 61-53-7.
No fans were allowed, so there wasn’t much of a homefield advantage for the Black Knights. When the game began, the Mids and Cadets were seated in groups on different sides and behind both goalposts, and the stadium literally shook after President Donald Trump conducted the coin toss and the Mids won.
Army had three weeks off to prepare after its game Nov. 7 against Air Force was switched to next Saturday because of COVID-19 concerns in and around the Air Force academy. Navy was coming in off four straight losses.
› No. 20 North Carolina 62, No. 9 Miami 26
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Michael Carter and Javonte Williams set an NCAA record by combining for 544 rushing yards, and North Carolina embarrassed Miami in the regularseason finale for both teams.
Carter ran for 308 yards and two touchdowns, while Williams had 236 yards and three touchdowns for the Tar Heels (8-3, 7-3 Atlantic Coast Conference). Per the NCAA, it was the seventh time that two teammates each ran for at least 200 yards, the first since 2016 and the first such instance in ACC history.
And the numbers only got worse for Miami (8-2, 7-2). Carter and Williams’s combined total topped the NCAA’s listed Football Bowl Subdivision record for teammates, set Nov. 30 when Jaret Patterson (409) and Kevin Marks (97) rushed for 506 for Buffalo against Kent State.
North Carolina finished with 778 yards — the most ever yielded by Miami and a Tar Heels record — including 554 rushing, the most allowed in Hurricanes history. Sam Howell threw for a score, ran for a score and caught a touchdown pass for the Tar Heels.
› No. 11 Coastal Carolina 42, Troy 38
TROY, Ala. — Jaivon Heiligh caught a 23-yard touchdown pass from Grayson McCall with 45 seconds left, and Coastal Carolina preserved its first perfect regular season with a win over Troy.
McCall needed just 45 seconds to move the Chanticleers (11-0, 8-0 Sun Belt Conference), who didn’t have any timeouts, 75 yards for the winning score. He completed all four of his passes on the drive, three of them to Heiligh.
They survived a sandwich game between an upset of then-No. 8 BYU and the upcoming league title game against No. 17 Louisiana-Lafayette.
The Trojans (5-6, 3-4) didn’t make it easy for the highestranked team to visit Veterans Memorial Stadium.
› No. 15 Northwestern 28, Illinois 10
EVANSTON, Ill. — Cam Porter ran for a career-high 142 yards and two touchdowns, Evan Hull added a season-best 149 yards on the ground and Northwestern tuned up for the Big Ten championship game by beating Illinois.
Porter came in with just 32 yards and one touchdown, but the freshman broke out in a big way, leading the Wildcats (6-1) to an easy victory over the Illini (2-5). Northwestern’s focus now shifts to the Big Ten championship game against No. 3 Ohio State next Saturday. It’s the second title matchup in three years between the teams.
Northwestern won the Big Ten West after finishing last in the division in 2019.
› No. 19 Iowa 28, No. 25 Wisconsin 7
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Spencer Petras threw for 211 yards and two touchdowns to Ihmir Smith-Marsette to lead Iowa past Wisconsin, the Hawkeyes’ sixth win in a row.
Iowa (6-2, 6-2 Big Ten) beat the Badgers (2-3, 2-3) for the first time since 2015 to reclaim the Heartland Trophy. Hawkeyes players celebrated by making snow angels after flurries picked up in the second half and blanketed the field in white.
Iowa’s offense came alive in the second half after both teams struggled in the first. Petras found Smith-Marsette for 19-yard touchdown in the third quarter to give the Hawkeyes a 14-0 lead.
› Utah 38, No. 21 Colorado 21
BOULDER, Colo. — Ty Jordan scored twice, including a sealing 66-yard burst, and Utah’s revamped defense forced three turnovers to help the Utes rally past Colorado in the snow to thwart the Buffaloes’ Pac-12 title hopes.
The soon-to-be-unseated Pac-12 South champion Utes (2-2) found their footing on the frozen field in the second half, turning around a 21-10 deficit by scoring 28 straight points.
Colorado freshman receiver andreturner Brenden Rice, the son of Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice, showed off his speed by scoring twice — on an 81-yard punt return and on a 61-yard catch off a bubble screen. But it wasn’t enough as the Buffaloes (4-1, 3-1) took their first loss under new coach Karl Dorrell during the earliest kickoff (10:05 a.m. local time) in Folsom Field history.
› No. 24 Buffalo 56, Akron 7
AMHERST, N.Y. — Jaret Patterson ran for 105 yards and matched a major-college football record by reaching 1,000 yards for the season in five games as Buffalo routed Akron as a tuneup for the Mid-American Conference championship.
Patterson scored two touchdowns before halftime, bringing his season totals to 1,025 yards and 18 rushing scores for the Bulls (5-0). He is the 12th player in FBS history to surpass 1,000 yards in as many games.
Kevin Marks Jr. led the Bulls with a career-high 175 yards and two touchdowns. Marks went over 100 yards and scored twice in the first half as Buffalo (5-0) built a 35-0 lead against Akron (1-5). The Bulls scored on defense for the fourth time this season when Tyrone Hill blocked a field goal and returned it 63 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter.
› Memphis 30, Houston 27
MEMPHIS — Riley Patterson kicked a 47-yard field goal as time expired to give Memphis a win over Houston after the Cougars’ improbable rally.
Trailing 27-6 at the end of the third, Houston’s Clayton Tune threw a pair of touchdown passes around his 19-yard scoring run in the final quarter to tie it at 27 with less than 30 seconds to play.
Tune threw a 13-yard score to Marquez Stevenson early in the fourth after a 10-play, 75-yard drive. His score on the ground came five minutes later with 8:01 remaining. The game-tying drive ended when Tune threw an 18-yard pass to Bryson Smith with 28 seconds to go. On the 15-play, 70-yard march, the Cougars had two conversions on fourth down to keep going.
Brady White responded to lead Memphis (7-3, 5-3 American Athletic Conference) on a five-play, 46-yard drive to set up Patterson. The Tigers were aided by a 15-yard pass interference play. White found Calvin Austin III two plays later on a 22-yard reception in which the receiver bent backwards across his body and appeared to injure his leg.
With the win, Memphis finished a second consecutive season undefeated at home for the first time in program history.