Gino Guidugli returned from a broken throwing hand and passed for 231 yards and two touchdowns in Cincinnati's 32-14 win over Marshall in the Fort Worth Bowl on Thursday night.
Wearing a padded glove on his still very swollen right hand, which he injured on Nov. 20, Guidugli completed 24 of 36 passes on a bitterly cold night.
PHOTO: AP
After his only interception, which Marshall returned for a score, Guidugli completed 10 straight passes and 14 of 16 in the second quarter. He threw both TD passes in that stretch to put Cincinnati (7-5) ahead to stay.
PHOTO: AP
The Bearcats overcame a 2-4 start to finish with a winning record for first-year coach Mark Dantonio, the former Ohio State defensive coordinator. The bowl was their last game as a Conference USA member before moving to the Big East next season.
Marshall (6-6), moving next year to C-USA from the Mid-American Conference, had its streak of 20 straight winning seasons ended.
PHOTO: AP
The Thundering Herd, which had won five straight bowl games, had a season-low 134 yards. Stan Hill completed 14 of 30 passes for 137 yards and a TD to go with minus-3 yards rushing for his team.
Kevin Lovell kicked three field goals (23, 19 and 35 yards) and Hannibal Thomas had nine catches for 102 yards for Cincinnati.
Guidugli missed the regular-season finale after he broke two bones in his hand in a fall outside his home. Without him, the Bearcats lost 70-7 to No. 7 Louisville with two quarterbacks combining for just 33 yards.
Before that, Guidugli had thrown for 1,022 yards with 12 touchdowns and no interceptions during a four-game winning streak.
Wyoming 24, UCLA 21
In Las Vegas, Corey Bramlet drilled a 12-yard touchdown pass to John Wadkowski with 57 seconds left Thursday night to give Wyoming its first bowl victory in 38 years, a 24-21 win over UCLA.
Bramlet finished 20-of-34 for 307 yards and two touchdowns. He took the Cowboys 72 yards to the winning score on a drive that began with 4:02 remaining.
He kept the drive alive with a quarterback sneak on a fourth-and-1 at the Bruins' 27. A pass interference call against UCLA cornerback Matt Clark moved the ball to the 12, and Bramlet found Wadkowski open across the middle.
Wyoming (7-5) had lost six straight bowl games dating to a 1966 Sun Bowl victory over Florida State. The Cowboys hadn't played in a bowl since 1993, when Kansas State beat them 52-17 in the Copper Bowl.
Jovon Bouknight of Wyoming had five catches for 107 yards and threw a touchdown pass.
Trailing 21-10, the Cowboys closed within four points on a trick play early in the fourth quarter, with Bouknight throwing a 22-yard scoring pass to J.J. Raterink off a reverse.
Bramlet rallied the Cowboys after UCLA reserve quarterback David Koral threw two touchdown passes to put the Bruins ahead.
The Bruins (6-6) beat New Mexico 27-13 in the 2002 Las Vegas Bowl, its only win in their last six bowl appearances.
Koral finished 7-of-12 for 89 yards and the two touchdowns. Olson, who was 6-of-12 for 96 yards and one TD, twisted his knee on a sack by John Flora.
Bowling Green 52, Memphis 35
Omar Jacobs passed for 365 yards and five touchdowns, leading Bowling Green to a 52-35 victory over Memphis in the GMAC Bowl.
The Falcons (9-3) turned a shootout into a blowout after leading 35-28 at halftime to win their fourth consecutive bowl game Wednesday night.
Jacobs got them started with four first-half touchdown passes -- two apiece to Charles Sharon and Steve Sanders -- and P.J. Pope helped carry them the rest of the way.
Pope ran 28 times for 151 yards and a pair of 1-yard touchdowns, also scoring on a 13-yard reception for the only score of the third quarter.
The Tigers (8-4), playing in back-to-back bowl games for the first time, couldn't keep up with the nation's No. 4 offense, which totaled 558 total yards.
Memphis star DeAngelo Williams rushed for 120 yards on 18 carries before limping to the locker room at the end of the third quarter with a fractured right fibula.
Danny Wimprine nearly matched Jacobs' performance, going 26-of-39 for 324 yards and four touchdowns but passing for just 11 yards in the third quarter and losing a fumble.
Jacobs, whose 41 touchdown passes led the nation and set a Mid-American Conference record, completed 26 of 44 passes with an interception to earn Most Valuable Player honors.
At halftime, the teams seemed poised to take aim at the 2001 GMAC Bowl, the highest scoring bowl game in history with 125 combined points for Marshall and East Carolina.
The offenses stopped themselves early in the third quarter. Jacobs threw only his fourth interception of the season to give the Tigers the ball at Bowling Green's 41.
Memphis tried to go for it on fourth down but was twice penalized for having 12 men on the field.
Bowling Green made it 42-28 on the ensuing possession with Pope slipping underneath for a 13-yard touchdown catch on third-and-7
The Tigers then squandered another trip across midfield when a scrambling Wimprine fumbled the ball and Bowling Green's Mike Thaler recovered 31 yards behind the line of scrimmage to set up a field goal.
Even the weather worked in the offenses' favor, however, with a driving rainstorm subsiding a few minutes before kickoff to clear the way for Jacobs and Wimprine to go to work.
They took full advantage. Jacobs capped his four-touchdown half with a 17-yarder to Sanders, who reached over defensive back Cameron Essex in the end zone with 37 seconds left.
Wimprine was nearly as good, throwing for a 42-yard score to tight end John Doucette, a 60-yarder to Chris Kelley and a 39-yarder to Maurice Avery on a screen pass. Williams momentarily stopped the aerial show with a 31-yard scoring run down the sideline.
Sanders had seven catches for 124 yards and Sharon gained 117 yards on five catches.
Not surprisingly, it was a night for offensive records.
Jacobs set the MAC record with his 41st overall touchdown rushing or passing in the first quarter, adding four more. He also joined Ben Roethlisberger and Byron Leftwich as the league's only 4,000-yard passers.
The Falcons also set the MAC record for scoring average in a season. Wimprine went over 10,000 career passing yards.
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