BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- — Clayton Tune and the Houston Cougars punctuated an impressive season with a win in Southeastern Conference country.
Jake Herslow caught a 26-yard, go-ahead touchdown pass from Tune with 3:27 left to help lift No. 21 Houston to a 17-13 victory over Auburn on Tuesday in the Birmingham Bowl in front of a mostly orange-and-blue crowd at Protective Stadium.
The Cougars (12-2) marched 80 yards in eight plays to cap the third season in program history with at least 12 wins. They snapped a four-game bowl losing streak and won 12 of their final 13 games, the only loss after the opener coming to No. 4 Cincinnati in the American Athletic Conference championship game.
Houston coach Dana Holgorsen said this win was similar to "some other ones that we've had this year."
"Just a bunch of guys that fight hard and win," Holgorsen said. "Basically, winning this game solidified this 2021 football team at the University of Houston as a great football team."
The Tigers (6-7) went in the opposite direction at the end of coach Bryan Harsin's first season. They ended with five straight losses for the first time in 71 years and dropped their third bowl game in a row.
Harsin was already looking ahead to, he hopes, better things.
"Nobody's going to go in there and just hang their head and say, ‘Well, this is just how it is,' " Harsin said. "We're going to change it. We're going to fix it, and we're going to get better.
"I mean, there is no Plan B. There's Plan A, and we're here to make this work."
Game MVP Tune completed 26 of 40 passes for 283 yards and two touchdowns with an interception while also rushing for 43 yards. Nathaniel Dell caught 10 passes for 150 yards, while Alton McCaskill ran for 66 yards and caught a touchdown pass.
"That's kind of been our offense this whole season, is when we've needed to make plays we do," Tune said. "There was no panic."
And Herslow, who walked on after playing for Old Dominion from 2017-19, delivered the biggest catch. He's a player Horgorsen called "one of the best stories in college football."
Auburn, which fired offensive coordinator Mike Bobo after the regular season, had one more chance but couldn't get a first down. Tank Bigsby ran for 8 yards on first down and then T.J. Finley threw three straight incompletions on short passes.
Houston ran out the clock.
Finley completed 19 of 34 passes for 227 yards and a touchdown in his third start since replacing injured Bo Nix. Bigsby had 88 rushing yards and 68 receiving yards.
The Cougars had moved across midfield for the go-ahead score after Auburn's second targeting ejection, this time against Jaylin Simpson.
Tune set it up with a 20-yard pass to tight end Christian Trahan.
The Tigers rallied from a 10-0 deficit to take the lead late in the third quarter on Kobe Hudson's 12-yard touchdown catch from Finley on third and goal.
Auburn had several promising drives stall.
"It was pretty frustrating," tight end John Samuel Shenker said. "We moved the ball pretty well, then we'd get down there and we'd have little mental errors. That's just little things that you can't afford to happen this late in the season."
THE TAKEAWAY
Houston lost its opener to Texas Tech but was awfully hard to beat after that. The Cougars got their first bowl since since beating then-No. 9 Florida State in the Peach Bowl on Dec. 31, 2015
Auburn had another game that slipped away late, including a quadruple-overtime loss to No. 1 Alabama. The Tigers were without some key players who were hurt, transferred or opted out.
TARGETED
Auburn safety Smoke Monday was the first player ejected for targeting after an earlier flag against him was overturned. This call came during Nehemiah Pritchett's interception return. The penalty knocked the Tigers back 47 yards and cost them one of their top defenders.
NEXT?
Holgorsen noted that Cincinnati has been on a roll since a win in Birmingham. Now, the Bearcats are set to play No. 1 Alabama Friday in the College Football Playoff semifinals in Arlington, Texas.
"Maybe they can beat the SEC, too," the Cougars coach said.
DALLAS -- — Air Force changed its strategy Tuesday for the First Responder Bowl, taking inspiration from its name and trying out its passing game. It worked.
Haaziq Daniels threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more to give Air Force a 31-28 win over Louisville.
Daniels completed 9 of 10 passes for a season-high 252 yards, leading a triple-option offense that came into the game averaging an FBS-best 340.8 rushing yards and the second-fewest passing yards at 82.5 per game.
The Falcons (10-3) didn't throw a pass in their final game of the regular season, a 48-14 win over UNLV, and took a streak of 94 straight rushes from scrimmage into their second possession Tuesday.
"I figured we'd (pass) more then we did in the last game," Air Force coach Troy Calhoun joked. "I just think sometimes you get in games, you make adjustments."
Louisville coach Scott Satterfield lamented his shorthanded secondary getting beat on man-to-man coverage. The Cardinals (6-7) were missing defensive back Kenderick Duncan (injured) and Greedy Vance, who is transferring to Florida State.
"Anytime you play a team like this, they're going to take a shot," Satterfield said. "They connect — they're going to come back to it again."
Senior Brandon Lewis had touchdown catches of 64 and 61 yards for the Falcons, finishing with five receptions for a career-high 172 yards. That's the most receiving yardage for an Air Force player this season and the most ever in the Falcons' 28 bowl games.
"I feel like I could have been doing this all season," Lewis said. "I'm just happy that I did do it in my final game."
Matthew Dapore kicked a 26-yard field goal with 5:28 left to give the Falcons a two-score lead.
Louisville's Malik Cunningham threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Harrell and ran for a 22-yard touchdown with 2:57 to play. Jawhar Jordan returned a kickoff 100 yards and Trevion Cooley had a 1-yard run for the Cardinals' other touchdowns.
Cooley, a freshman, had 92 yards rushing for Louisville. Redshirt freshman Jalen Mitchell, who led the Cardinals during the season with 722 rushing yards, was out with an illness.
Louisville's James Turner had a 44-yard field-goal attempt sail left in the first quarter, and the Cardinals were stopped on fourth-and-goal at the Falcons' 2-yard line early in the third quarter when Cooley was tackled by Camby Goff and Trey Taylor.
"We ran the play probably three of four times, which, it worked every single time up until that point," Cooley said. "It was my job to really punch it in."
Daniels ran for a 5-yard touchdown in the first quarter to give Air Force a 7-0 lead and a 1-yard score in the final minute of the second quarter to put the Falcons ahead 28-14.
THE TAKEAWAY
Air Force: The No. 6 overtime loss to Army prevented the Falcons from winning the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy for the first time since 2016 instead of settling for a three-way tie. They recorded double-digit wins for the fourth time in Calhoun's 15 seasons.
Louisville: The Cardinals had their second straight losing record. Tuesday's loss was the fourth by one score. "If that one play is made (in those games), it's a totally different season," senior linebacker C.J. Avery said.
POWER SHORTAGE
With Air Force beating Louisville and Houston defeating Auburn earlier Tuesday in the Birmingham Bowl, Power Five programs are 0-5 in bowls against teams from the Group of Five or independents.
MILESTONES
Cunningham (13 of 21 passing for 207 yards, 12 carries for 63 yards) became the second Louisville quarterback to rush for 1,000 yards in a season (1,031), and the 100 touchdowns he's responsible for are second to Lamar Jackson's 119. Cunningham will return for his fifth season in 2022. … Air Force senior fullback Brad Roberts had 20 carries, giving him a school-record 314 career rushes.
UP NEXT
Air Force: The Falcons will begin the 2022 season on Sept. 3 against Northern Iowa at home and then host Colorado to Colorado Springs the following week.
Louisville: The Cardinals will open at UCF on Sept. 10 and face South Florida before jumping into ACC play.
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UP NEXT
Houston will try to close the gap on Cincinnati with an offense that is expected to return Tune and tailback Alton McCaskill. The Cougars open against UTSA.
Auburn has an important offseason that includes replacing Nix, who was injured and subsequently transferred to Oregon. The Tigers open against Mercer.
