Georgia Southern: 2018 Camellia Bowl Champions

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Tyler Bass found a way to top his last-play 50-yard field goal to end the first half.

Bass kicked a 40-yarder as time expired to give Georgia Southern a 23-21 victory over Eastern Michigan in the Camellia Bowl on Saturday night.

Shai Werts kept the winning drive alive with a 29-yard scramble on fourth-and-10. Bass came on for his third field goal after Wesley Fields' two runs pushed Georgia Southern (10-3) 7 yards closer.

"Right when Shai got that first down, I knew we had a chance to kick it," Bass said. "We've been preparing all week for it, all year for it. When I got out there, I didn't think about anything but the snap, the hold and me just kicking it through. That was it."

Georgia Southern completed the biggest turnaround in the Football Bowl Subdivision this season, going from 10 losses to 10 wins.

"I said at the beginning of the year, we're not sexy, we're just blue collar," coach Chad Lunsford said. "That showed tonight."

Eastern Michigan (7-6) had delivered its own big fourth-down play to take the lead for the first time.

Mike Glass threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Arthur Jackson with 3:33 left on fourth-and-4, followed by Chad Ryland's extra point.

"It was a great football game, and they're obviously a great football program and a great football team," Eastern Michigan coach Chris Creighton said. "They got it done in the end. Much as it rips our heart out to say, we do congratulate them, and (it was) an awesome football game."

Georgia Southern took over at its own 25 with a triple-option offense that attempted fewer passes than every FBS team but Army. Werts completed a 15-yard pass to tight end Ellis Richardson, but Georgia Southern fittingly covered most of the 52 yards with runs.

Werts ran for 79 yards and two first-half touchdowns while completing 4 of 7 passes for 33 yards to receive Most Valuable Player honors. His biggest play came on the fourth-and-10.

"I really should have thrown the ball. Ellis was wide open," Werts said. "Wesley had made a block on the linebacker. There was nobody in front of me so I just took off running."

Wesley Kennedy III gained 107 yards on nine carries.

Eastern Michigan's Glass completed 17 of 25 passes for 204 yards and three touchdowns, including a 75-yarder to Jackson on the opening play of the second half. He had missed the final two games of the regular season with a right leg injury and had only two previous starts.

Glass found Jackson in the back of the end zone to cap a 16-play, 75-yard drive that consumed more than six minutes.

"I was just going through my reads and came back to it late," Glass said. "The linebacker stepped up a little bit and I saw I could get it over their heads."

As it turns out, it left too much time on the clock.

THE TAKEAWAY

Georgia Southern: Ran for 331 yards on 58 carries. Finished the season without throwing an interception. Had its first 10-win season in FBS and second bowl win in as many tries.

Eastern Michigan: Had eight games decided by one score. Just missed its first eight-win season since going 10-2 in 1987.

TURNOVER RECORD

Georgia Southern set an NCAA FBS record with only five turnovers this season. The previous NCAA record was eight turnovers in a season by six teams, last done by LSU in 2017. The Eagles were the only FBS team that didn't throw an interception this season.

THEY SAID IT

"When we first got here this program was in shambles." Eastern Michigan defensive lineman Jeremiah Harris.

CLOSE CAMELLIAS

The five Camellia Bowls have been decided by a combined 17 points, including two winning, last-play field goals.

UP NEXT

Georgia Southern returns most of its offensive starters, including Werts, but loses leading rusher Wesley Fields and top tackler Joshua Moon. It will be the second full season for Lunsford, who led the team's rebound from a 2-10 season.

Eastern Michigan is set to lose six starters on both offense and defense, including quarterback Tyler Wiegers. Glass started three games and is a dual threat running and passing.

Villanova: 2016-17 Big East Men's Basketball Champions

NEW YORK -- The final buzzer sounded on Villanova's decisive win over Creighton in the Big East title game, and it was time for the Wildcats to celebrate.

Only they didn't. A few hugs, a couple of high-fives. That was it.

If there had been no Big East champion signs to hold up or hats to wear, you might have thought Villanova had just beaten DePaul in an early-January conference game.

"We have more work to do. A lot better we can get," senior forward Darryl Reynolds said. "You come down a bit quicker because you realize you have so much more work to do than celebrating completely. We're excited, but we understand we have more work to do."

If there was any remaining doubt, Villanova erased it on Saturday. The Wildcats are dialed in for a repeat run to the national championship.

They bounced back from Friday's close semifinal win over Seton Hall with an impressive 74-60 effort against a hot Creighton team. Josh Hart had 29 points and six rebounds as he continues his late push toward national player of the year honors; Jalen Brunson finished with 17 points and five assists; and Kris Jenkins buried two early 3-pointers en route to 14 points.

Villanova's Josh Hart had 29 points and six rebounds against Creighton in the Big East title game, but the Wildcats didn't spend much time celebrating. David Hahn/Icon Sportswire

With the win, Villanova enters the NCAA tournament with the fewest losses (three) of any reigning national champion since Duke in 2001-02.

But while all the talk outside the program is about the Wildcats having a chance to be the first repeat champion since Florida in 2006 and 2007, the players insist it's not even on their mind.

"We don't talk about it," Reynolds said. "We were the champions last year. This year, if we won again, that's two different trophies. Nobody can take what we did last year from us. You can move forward and free your mind and realize that last year was last year. We gotta take care of business this year."

Seriously? Never discussed?

"You just said it," Jenkins said. "That's the only time it's been mentioned."

Although Villanova's 31-3 record looks near flawless, the Wildcats are still fine-tuning for the three weeks ahead. Coach Jay Wright experimented with a variety of different lineups and defenses during the week in New York, utilizing jumbo lineups with four frontcourt players on the court at the same time and switching to zone defenses more often to throw a wrinkle at opponents.

Hart, Brunson and Jenkins are the mainstays, but Wright wants to make sure he has a few more tricks up his sleeve in the NCAA tournament. Freshman big man Dylan Painter was the newest change, as he played a season-high 22 minutes against St. John's on Thursday with Mikal Bridges sidelined due to a stomach virus.

Combined with Eric Paschall and Donte DiVincenzo off the bench, Painter gives Wright his deepest rotation of the season -- at the right time.

"Those guys have really developed into big-time players," Wright said. "So it gives us a good eight-man rotation now, which is very important, especially this time of year."

This week in New York refocused Villanova. The Wildcats hadn't really been tested in a couple of months. There was the home loss to Butler a few weeks ago, but aside from that, they hadn't had a win by fewer than 11 points since Feb. 1 against Providence. And then on Friday, Seton Hall jumped on them early and had the lead late, but Hart and Brunson made big plays to get the win for Villanova.

If Villanova is to go on and reach the Final Four, it will look back at that victory as a turning point.

"It was a wake-up call on our attitudes and our habits," DiVincenzo said. "We know if we have one of those slip-ups in the NCAA tournament, a great team is going to get us."

So where might Villanova slip up in the next couple of weeks? The big three of Hart, Brunson and Jenkins are in sync, depth has been addressed, focus and complacency are no longer issues.

Villanova will enter Sunday as the overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and a favorite to win the national championship. It will have a favorable geographic path, heading to Buffalo and New York, before the Final Four.

There's the elephant in the room, though. Pressure.


Villanova, after years of being overlooked regardless of regular-season performance, is the hunted. If there's a team prepared to handle it, though, it's the Wildcats. They have the experience of winning a title, and with four straight regular-season championships, being in everyone else's crosshairs isn't a new feeling.

"We got a target on our back throughout the whole year," sophomore forward Bridges said. "No. 1 team in the country, teams bringing their best, reigning national champs the whole year. No pressure, we just know we gotta bring it."

Make no mistake, Villanova is locked in for the next three weeks.

"I feel like we're getting better at the right time," Jenkins said.

And that's a scary thought for the rest of the country.