UTSA: 2025 First Responder Bowl Champions

 

DALLAS - Owen McCown of the UTSA Roadrunners had 295 passing yards as quarterback to score three touchdowns as UTSA beat the FIU Panthers 57-20 Friday night in the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl game.

Texas State: 2024 First Responder Bowl Champions

DALLAS -- — Jordan McCloud threw for 307 yards and a touchdown, Lincoln Pare ran for a 73-yard touchdown with 2:25 remaining in the fourth quarter and Texas State held off North Texas 30-28 on Friday night in the First Responder Bowl.

Texas State (8-5) secured eight wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1981-82. North Texas (6-7) was seeking its first bowl win since the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl.

Pare carried 21 times for 143 yards and two touchdowns. His first score, from 1-yard out, capped a 13-play, 75-yard drive that took nearly seven minutes to give Texas State a 23-14 lead midway through the third quarter.

Neither team scored again until Makenzie McGill's short TD run got North Texas within 23-21 with 3:20 left. Two plays later, Pare raced for his long score and Texas State made the extra point for a nine-point lead.

North Texas quarterback Drew Mestemaker answered with a 70-yard run with 1:49 left to get within two points again. The Mean Green got the ball back with 40 seconds left at their 8-yard line. But Texas State defensive end Kalil Alexander made a sack on first down to work down the clock and linebacker Treylin Payne sealed it with an interception over the middle.

Mestemaker, who was making his first career start, finished with 393 yards passing and two touchdowns with two interceptions for North Texas. It was the most passing yards in a bowl game in program history. He also carried nine times for 55 yards and a touchdown.

Mestemaker started in place of Chandler Morris, who threw for 3,774 yards and 31 touchdowns with 12 interceptions this season before transferring to Virginia. Mestemaker, a freshman, matched his season passing total of 69 yards on North Texas' only scoring drive in the first quarter.

Texas State: 2023 First Responder Bowl Champions

 Texas State fans weren’t messing around in their first bowl appearance on Tuesday night in the Dallas area. The Bobcats were facing Rice in the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl at SMU’s stadium, and it sounds like stadium reps weren’t prepared for the hydration practices from fans.

Making their first ever appearance in a bowl game, Texas State fans made the trek to Dallas in full force, taking up their side of the stadium. To be honest, this should’ve been expected, as Bobcat fans are known to take down some frosty beverages.

But it doesn’t sound like First Responder Bowl reps were prepared for the amount of celebrating Texas State fans were preparing for.

According to a number of media outlets and fans, the Bobcats side of the stadium sold-out of alcohol before the first half ended. This sent fans to the opposite side of Gerald J. Ford stadium to collect any extra beverages that weren’t being bought by Rice fans.

Carter Yates of ‘Dave Campbell Texas Football’ summed up the atmosphere, along with a communications problem for both teams.

This is certainly a great problem to have when it comes finances. Not only did the Bobcats win their first bowl game, Texas State fans drank the entire stadium dry in the process, with a little help from the Rice contingent.

But, running out of beer before halftime is a rough situation for fans looking to continue their holiday celebration.

Memphis: 2022 First Responder Bowl Champions

DALLAS – The University of Memphis football team earned a 38-10 victory over Utah State in the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl on Tuesday at Gerald J. Ford Stadium in Dallas. With the victory, the Tigers end the season with a 7-6 record, while the Aggies finish at 6-7.

 

The 28-point win for Memphis is the largest in the program's bowl history. Ryan Silverfield is the first head coach in team history to earn back-to-back bowl game championships and joins Tommy West as the only head coaches in Tiger history with two total bowl titles.

 

Sophomore quarterback Seth Henigan was named the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl MVP after completing 20-of-29 passes for 284 yards and three touchdowns. Henigan extended his streak of consecutive games with at least one TD pass to 24.

"I am so proud of our resiliency today and leading up to today," Silverfield said. "We are going to celebrate this and be proud of the moment. I am proud of our guys and our seniors. That win was for them. Thanks to all of the great fans from the city of Memphis. I am honored to coach this team. There are bright days ahead of us."

 

Fifth-year defensive back Sylvonta Oliver had two interceptions to spearhead the Memphis defensive effort, matching both the team's bowl game record, as well as the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl mark. The Tigers limited Utah State to just 261 total yards, the second fewest in program bowl history.

 

Memphis never trailed in the game on Tuesday, running out to a 24-3 lead at halftime thanks in part to a 21-point second quarter. Wide receiver Eddie Lewis had a pair of touchdown catches in the frame, finishing the game with five receptions for a game-high 83 yards and two scores.

 

Tight end Caden Prieskorn capped the first half with a three-yard touchdown catch with 24 seconds remaining. Prieskorn's score capped one of the best seasons for a tight end in Memphis history. The redshirt sophomore finished the year with 48 receptions for 602 yards and seven scores. His receptions and TD receptions are tied for the most among tight ends in single-season history, while his receiving yards are the second-most.

 

In the fourth quarter, the Aggies cut the lead to 24-10, but running back Jevyon Ducker ended the drama, scoring from 1-yard and 48-yards out to make the score 38-10. Ducker finished with 13 rushes for a game-high 83 yards and two touchdowns.

 

Defensively, redshirt junior linebacker Geoffrey Cantin-Arku had a game-high 10 tackles with one tackle for loss, while defensive back Joel Williams had one tackle and an interception for the Tigers. Playing in their final games for Memphis, linebackers Tyler Murray and Xavier "Zay" Cullens finished with seven tackles each.

Air Force: 2021 First Responder Bowl Champions

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.

Louisiana-Lafayette: 2020 First Responder Bowl Champions

(UL ATHLETICS PRESS RELEASE) – For the second consecutive season, Louisiana Football emerged victorious in its bowl game after it defeated UTSA, 31-24, to claim the 2020 SERVPRO First Responder Bowl title on Saturday afternoon at Gerald J. Ford Stadium.

 

Powered by a stellar performance from the game’s Most Valuable Player, Elijah Mitchell, the No. 19-ranked Ragin’ Cajuns (10-1, 7-1 Sun Belt) locked up their second-straight 10-win season.

 

Mitchell racked up 127 rushing yards on 19 carries and added a touchdown as part of his MVP performance. The yardage total set the program record for the most rushing yards in a bowl game and was the fourth-most rushing yards in the bowl’s history.

 

Fellow running back Trey Ragas was also impressive in the win with 98 rushing yards on 14 attempts and his 10th rushing score of the year.

 

Through the air, quarterback Levi Lewis finished the game with 146 yards and threw two touchdown passes to Jalen Williams and Kyren Lacy. Lewis now sits at third in program history for career passing yards, while Lacy led all Louisiana receivers with four catches for 38 yards.

 

Defensively, Lorenzo McCaskill tied the program record for the most tackles in a bowl game with 11 against the Roadrunners, his fourth double-digit tackle performance of the season. Ferrod Gardner had another huge day, recording eight tackles, 1.0 sack and a fumble recovery.

 

Safety Percy Butler notched the team’s other turnover with an interception early in the game, the team’s 16th of the season. With the pick, the team matched its 2009 total of 16 picks.

 

Louisiana opened the scoring on Saturday when Lewis found Williams for the 15-yard score to cap off an eight-play, 68-yard drive on its opening possession. After Kenneth Almendares added a field goal, UTSA answered when Frank Harris scored from 11 yards out with 4:33 remaining in the half.

 

Lewis led the Ragin’ Cajuns down the field right before the break, slinging a pass to Lacy in the back of the end zone to put Louisiana up 17-7 at halftime.

 

It was a dream start to the second half when Gardner scooped up a UTSA fumble, setting up the offense on the Roadrunner three yard line. Mitchell answered on the first play, pounding his way into the end zone from three yards out to extend the lead to 24-7.

 

UTSA took advantage of turnover and a costly Louisiana penalty on back-to-back drives, scoring two passing touchdowns to pull within 24-21 with 4:09 to play in the third quarter.

 

After the Roadrunners tied things up with a 20-yard field goal, the Ragin’ Cajuns put together a 12-play, 72-yard drive that was capped off by a powerful one-yard touchdown run by Ragas to push Louisiana back in front 31-24.

 

Louisiana’s defense came up big at the end of the contest, making a critical stop on fourth down to turn the ball back over to the offense, which successfully milked the clock to secure the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl title.

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.