It took some help from a Sun Belt team, but the GoDaddy Bowl gave us a MACtion supernova. The FBS season's second-to-last game saw 1,000 yards, three return touchdowns, and a virtuoso performance from Toledo stud Kareem Hunt.
The FBS season's second-to-last game was perhaps the most MACtion game of the entire season. Let's take a look at the key numbers from Toledo's 63-44 GoDaddy Bowl win over Arkansas State.
304
In my GoDaddy preview, I noted that ASU lived and died with big plays. The Red Wolves had a relatively inefficient offense, but they bailed themselves out with explosiveness. A lot of that explosiveness came from running back Michael Gordon and freshman receiver Dijon Paschal (who combined for 47 yards on Sunday night). But the big plays flowed regardless, thanks to both deep balls and short balls that went deep.
ASU's Fredi Knighten completed 23 of 31 passes for a whopping 403 yards and five touchdowns in Mobile. Seven of those completions racked up at least 20 yards each and netted a combined 304 yards; four went for at least 44 yards. Five different players caught at least one 20-yarder, and Booker Mays finished the evening with five catches, 138 yards, and three scores. Junior J.D. McKissic, slowed by injury late in the year, had seven catches for 99.
The problem for the Red Wolves was that they also lived down to their inefficient stats. They rushed for 65 yards -- Gordon had 10 carries for 36 -- and nine of Knighten's completions went for five or fewer yards. It was all or nothing for an all-or-nothing offense, and the result was enough drive failures to give Toledo a nearly game-long cushion.
271
Even if you are pretty inefficient ball, you can usually secure a win with 403 passing yards, seven long throws, and five touchdowns unless your defense has no answers whatsoever.
ASU's defense had no answer whatsoever for Toledo's run game.
Sophomore back Kareem Hunt, one of the country's most underrated players, had rushed for at least 100 yards in every game he played this season. Against an ASU defense that ranks 104th in Rushing S&P+, he found lanes, to say the least. Hunt carried 32 times for 271 yards, which bumped him to 1,631 yards (8.0 per carry) for the season. And when he needed a spell, sophomore Damion Jones-Moore filled in with 15 carries and 103 yards.
DAMN RT @NickPiotrowicz: Hunt is now 9th in school history in rushing yards. He started the day in 14th.
— Hustle Belt (@HustleBelt) January 5, 2015
Hunt scored his fifth touchdown from a yard out to give the Rockets a 49-31 lead early in the fourth quarter, but ASU scored 90 seconds later. Hunt took his final carry 40 yards to set up a 10-yard Jones-Moore touchdown run and make it 56-38. ASU responded. After Toledo recovered an onside kick, Jones-Moore scored on a 29-yard run with a minute left. It took most of Toledo's 541 total yards (365 on the ground) to put the game away.
3
THIS IS SO MUCH FUN
— Hustle Belt (@HustleBelt) January 5, 2015
The game featured three turnovers. All three were returned for touchdowns. On the first play of the game, Knighten was stripped of the ball, and it bounced all the way into the end zone before Trent Voss fell on it for a touchdown. And late in the first half, with Toledo up 28-17, Allen Covington picked up another Knighten fumble and took it 67 yards for a score.
GO BIG FELLA https://t.co/GRdwqFqGvx
— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) January 5, 2015
With Toledo up 42-24 and looking to ice the game in the third quarter, Hunter snared a poor Logan Woodside pass and took it 94 yards to cut the lead to 42-31.
One thousand yards? Check. Three return touchdowns? Check. This is what we expect when the MAC and Sun Belt get together.
Mid-week MACtion games weren't particularly exciting this season, but bowl season made up for it. Western Michigan put together a fun fourth quarter but couldn't catch Air Force, falling 38-24 in the Potato Bowl. Bowling Green survived a wacky final stanza in a 33-28 Camellia Bowl win over South Alabama. (We'll skip over NIU getting throttled by Marshall.) Central Michigan nearly came back from five touchdowns down in 10 minutes before falling, 49-48, in the Bahamas Bowl. And then Toledo and ASU put a bow on mid-major bowl season with this fun 63-44 finish.
The table is now set for the championship (well, championSHIPS, if you're counting Saturday's North Dakota State-Illinois State FCS finale). We had ourselves a fun New Year's Day, some wild comebacks, and one final MAC shootout. And now we begin the run-up to next Monday's Oregon-Ohio State finale.
Source SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/1wbePxe
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