Florida: 2019 Orange Bowl Champions



The Orange Bowl between No. 9 Florida and No. 24 Virginia may not have been the most anticipated New Year's Six game when it was announced. However, it turned into an entertaining game of back-and-forth momentum swings with a little Las Vegas drama at the end to boot. Ultimately, the Gators walked away winners with a 36-28 final score. The victory moves Florida to 4-0 in the Orange Bowl all-time and gives it an 11-win season for the first time since 2012.

Monday night was also the Gators' best bowl performance of the decade offensively. They finished 549 yards of offense, the most since the 2010 Sugar Bowl against Cincinnati -- Tim Tebow's final game. Additionally, it gives Florida consecutive BCS/New Year's Six bowl wins for the first time in a decade (2008-09), making coach Dan Mullen the first coach in history to accomplish that task in his first two years at a school.

It also puts the team at 21-5 in two seasons under coach Mullen. Only Urban Meyer had a better record in his initial back-to-back seasons in Gainesville, Florida.

"Just under a year ago, this team was born, and we talked about going from four wins to 10 wins was special, but to go from 10 wins to 11 is going to be a lot harder, and those guys bought into it," Mullen said after the game. "They started working last January, and they worked, they grinded all season long in everything that they did. ... A couple years ago, this senior class, a new coach got brought in and we told them, 'Hey, if you buy into what we're doing, just buy into what we're doing, believe we're going to be successful.' They've done that, they've bought in. Back-to-back 10-win seasons, back-to-back top-10 teams, back-to-back New Year's Six bowl victories. They've bought in, and they've restored that Gator standard, and they get to walk out the door knowing they've restored the Gator standard to what it is, building that foundation of a team."

Gators quarterback Kyle Trask, who was tremendous in place of Feleipe Franks this season, was a little shaky in the game, completing 24 of 39 passes for 305 yards, a touchdown to running back Lamical Perine and an interception; Trask also nearly fumbled the ball, but the play was not overturned on review. Trask's numbers weren't necessarily bad, but a lot of his downfield throws were erratic. It was a good thing for the Gators to have a more reliable weapon in Perine.

"I think this win is huge for this program, not only for the program but also this team and the seniors that bought in when Coach Mullen first got here from Day 1," Trask said. "They worked day in and day out, and as far as my season went, I couldn't be more happy the way that my teammates had my back when I won versus Kentucky, and we just continued to grind every single week and get better each and every single week and here we are winning the Orange Bowl. That's pretty incredible."

While the game was close at times, the only real drama of the night came at the end when the game was pretty much in hand. With under a minute remaining, the Wahoos attempted a trick play by passing to an offensive lineman for a score. The play was called back, though, as an illegal forward pass. Still, Virginia scored two plays later, and while it didn't get the win, it secured the cover.

Here's what else we learned from Monday's Orange Bowl.

1. The Gators decided to run, and Perine was unstoppable: Three of Florida's four touchdowns on the evening came from Perine, a valued senior who totaled 181 yards on 18 touches -- just about 10 yards per touch -- and three touchdowns to receive Most Valuable Player honors. Perine has long been one of the most underrated (and perhaps underutilized) parts of Florida's offense, and he was absolutely untouchable against the Hoos on Monday night running for a career-high 138 yards with 43 more in the passing game. Who knows where Perine will go during the NFL Draft weekend. He may not hear his name called for a while. But he's one of those players who probably meant more to his offense than the stats indicated. He accomplished all of this behind a Gators offensive line that struggled mightily throughout the season, unable to create holes for its rushers. It appeared to step up as well.

2. Florida's defense turned it on for a short while: The first 30 minutes of the Orange Bowl was like a tennis match. Each team was volleying points back and forth waiting to see who would blink first. For a vaunted Florida defense, that didn't seem ideal. However, credit the Gators for drawing up some good halftime adjustments and having a bigger impact in the second half. The pass rush was good most of the night but certainly more effective both on and off the stat sheet in the third and fourth quarters. Florida finished with three sacks, five tackles for loss and two quarterback hurries. Virginia countered Florida's defensive front in the first half with quick passes and a moving pocket with successful results. UVA QB Bryce Perkins even made a few incredible individual plays in the face of that rush. But when it needed stops and negative plays, Florida came through and built a large enough lead that it was able to hang on to a lead late. However, it did ultimately give up 375 yards of total offense, including Perkins' best passing game.

"I'm looking at what they've got coming back. ... I'm excited. I mean, this is only just the beginning of it, honestly," said graduate transfer Jon Greenard, who showed out in his final game. "Last year was a little taste of it. We keep building. We got 11 wins, which is really difficult. So next year, a couple plays this year and we would've been right where we wanted. Next year, they are just going to capitalize off of that, understand where we were this past year, and national championship in my eyes. So we've got that in our eyes now."

3. Perkins will be missed at Virginia: The Hoos' signal caller will be an interesting late-round/undrafted prospect, but there's no denying what he's meant to this program. It took him all 60 minutes, but he broke the school's record for total offense career with 7,910 yards. The mark was previously held by quarterback Shawn Moore. That's pretty incredible in and of itself, but even more so when you consider all the problems Virginia had up front this season. For Perkins to be able to rack up yards running and throwing, usually in the face of pressure, says a lot about his playmaking ability. He didn't have a perfect night against Florida -- he missed a couple of surefire touchdowns that he'd love to have back -- but he also did things like this on his way to 323 yards passing with four touchdowns and an interception.

4. This is why conference tie-ins should be removed: Virginia played hard, gave Florida a game and has nothing to be ashamed about, but let's be honest: a four-loss team shouldn't be playing in a New Year's Six game. Conference tie-ins don't always produce bad matchups in these major bowl games, but in a year like this one when the ACC was average at best, you get this type of result. It wasn't bad, per se, but it could have been a lot better. So what's the solution? Ditch the tie-ins and use the College Football Playoff Rankings to help determine the games? It's interesting that there's so much disdain for the CFP Selection Committee in terms of their selection criteria for the field of four, because you could actually make an argument their process would be better suited for drumming up interesting matchups in these games without being held back by conference tie-ins.

California: 2019 Redbox Bowl Champions



Cal was two teams during the regular season. It was the team with quarterback Chase Garbers and the team without Chase Garbers. When Garbers started and finished a game, Cal went 6-0, picking up wins over Washington and Ole Miss, among others. The only two games Cal lost that Garbers started were games he didn't finish due to injury. In the four games he didn't play, the Golden Bears went 1-3.

Well, Garbers started for Cal in the Redbox Bowl against Illinois on Monday, finishing the game as well while leading the Bears to a 35-20 victory over the Illini. Garbers had one of the best games of his career, completing 22 of his 31 passes for 272 yards and four touchdowns. The four touchdown passes tied his career-high against Ole Miss earlier this season. Garbers even got in the end zone with his legs, scoring on a QB sneak in the first half.

Garbers was not getting the work done alone, however. Running back Chris Brown rushed for 120 yards on 20 carries and caught three passes for 17 yards and a touchdown. Receiver Makai Polk caught five passes for 105 yards as he was Garbers' favorite target on the day. Cal finishes the season at 8-5, meaning the team's win total has improved in each of Justin Wilcox's last two seasons with the program, but the team is left to wonder what might have been had Garbers never gotten hurt.

As for Illinois, it was a disappointing end to a season that had a couple of high notes with wins over a then-undefeated Wisconsin, as well as a 25-point comeback against Michigan State, but the Illini limped the finish line. This loss is the team's third straight to finish the season as they were banged up down the stretch. While Illinois got Brandon Peters back at QB, it was without its three leading receivers as well as a couple of key starters on defense.

Louisville: 2019 Music City Bowl Champions



Louisville finished off a remarkable 2019 season on Monday night in the Music City Bowl with a 38-28 win over Mississippi State at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, and the youngsters were the stars of the show.

Sophomore quarterback Micale Cunningham threw for 279 yards and two touchdowns, rushed for 81 yards on 16 carries and the Cardinals racked up a whopping 511 total yards to finish off an 8-5 season in Scott Satterfield's first year at the helm. Freshman running back Javian Hawkins was the workhorse for the Cardinals, rushing for 105 yards and one touchdown on 23 carries. Sophomore Chatarius Atwell provided balance through the air with nine receptions for 147 yards.

The Louisville defense -- which entered the game next-to-last in the ACC in rushing defense -- held the stout Bulldogs rushing attack to just 145 yards after star Kylin Hill was knocked out of the game with an injury.

It was the culmination of a remarkable turnaround for Satterfield, who took over a broken program following a 2-10 season under former coach Bobby Petrino. In one short season, Louisville transformed itself from the punchline of a very bad ACC joke into a program that looks more like the one that was a threat to Clemson and Florida State in the ACC Atlantic when Petrino had things cooking with quarterback Lamar Jackson.

The college football world is begging another team in the ACC to become a threat to knock Clemson off of its pedestal. Why not Louisville? The Cardinals are the second team in conference history to go from 0-8 in conference play to 5-3, and Satterfield just orchestrated the biggest turnaround in Power Five football in 2019. The school has made a major investment in the football program since joining the ACC earlier this decade, is in a fertile recruiting ground and has momentum on its side.

Is Louisville the next Clemson? No. It's way too soon for that. But in the crowded mess that is the ACC, it has the best chance to become the primary threat in 2020 and beyond.

Western Kentucky: 2019 First Responder Bowl Champions



Western Kentucky freshman kicker Cory Munson ran onto the field, then off and then back on. All of that before kicking a career-long 52-yard field goal with no time left after a rules review moved him five yards closer to the goal posts.

And Munson, who’d sliced a 29-yarder wide right on the final play of the first half, closed the game with the kick that gave the Hilltoppers a 23-20 victory over Western Michigan in the First Responder Bowl on Monday.

“I was just breathing and saying to myself: ‘You got this. Don’t worry about the last kick. You got this one. Just stay calm,’ and I just swung through it,” Munson said. “Next thing I knew, it was up there.”

The Hilltoppers (9-4) drove 36 yards in 27 seconds before Munson kicked his third field goal in four tries. The game appeared headed to overtime when Ty Storey's desperation heave was knocked down by the Broncos. But the Broncos were hit with a five-yard defensive substitution penalty and Munson was awarded an untimed down after a video review determined that Western Michigan had 12 players on the field as it switched between its field-goal unit and regular defense.

“We knew we could make the kick when we saw they had 12 men on the field and might get penalized,” first-year Western Kentucky coach Tyson Helton said. “I wanted our true freshman Cory Munson to get a chance to kick it, and he did. It was a great kick.”

Munson had tied the score at 20 on a 31-yarder with 1:36 to play. He also kicked a 26-yarder.

Thiago Kapps’ 20-yard field goal with 4:58 to play gave Western Michigan (7-6) a 20-17 lead.

“When they have their Hail Mary team and then the kickoff team and then the Hail Mary team out there, you have to stand over the ball and give us time to change,” Western Michigan coach Tim Lester said, “and it didn’t happen.”

Kapps’ field goal, his second of the game, capped a 62-yard drive that took 5:35 after Western Kentucky had tied the score on a 15-yard touchdown pass from Storey to Lucky Jackson with 10:40 to go. Jackson had 17 catches for 148 yards and was named the game’s most valuable player.

Western Michigan’s other touchdowns came on a 6-yard pass from Jon Wassink to DaShon Bussell midway through the third quarter and an 88-yard interception return by Kareem Ali in the first half’s closing minutes.

Storey, a graduate transfer from Arkansas, threw a 17-yard pass to Jahcour Pearson in the second quarter for the Hilltoppers’ other touchdown.

THE TAKEAWAY

Western Kentucky: The Hilltoppers will lose only two defensive starters from a unit that went into the bowl season ranked 21st in FBS scoring defense. With Storey leaving, Steven Duncan figures to return to No. 1 after starting this season’s first three games as a junior before injuring his left foot and missing the rest of the year.

Western Michigan: The Broncos will lose five starters each on offense and defense, including their three-year starter at quarterback (Wassink) and the Mid-American Conference players of the year on offense (RB LeVante Bellamy) and defense (LB Treshaun Hayward).

PASSED ON FIELD GOAL

Western Michigan could have attempted a go-ahead field goal of about 47 yards with 31 seconds left but instead went for it on fourth-and-3 at the Western Kentucky 30. Wassink’s pass into the end zone intended for Giovanni Ricci was broken up by Ta’Corian Darden.

Lester said he passed on a field goal try because the kick would have been into the wind. Kapps’ long this season was 45 yards.

VIVA HILLTOPPER

Lucky Jackson shares the name of Elvis Presley’s lead character in “Viva Las Vegas.” The senior now also owns the school record for catches in a game, became the fourth Western Kentucky player to have 1,000 receiving yards in a season and moved into second place in career catches with 209, behind Taywan Taylor’s 253.

UP NEXT

Western Kentucky: The Hilltoppers, who will open at home against Chattanooga on Sept. 5, will again play two Power Five programs (Louisville again and Indiana) next season. They play both defending Conference USA division winners on the road: Florida Atlantic and UAB.

Western Michigan: Next season the Broncos will return to Notre Dame, where they most recently played in 2010. Western Michigan will also welcome a Power Five team to Kalamazoo, Syracuse, a week after visiting South Bend.

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