A late punt return for a touchdown by Tulsa\u2019s Trey Watts pushed the Conference USA Championship Game into overtime. In the extra session, the Golden Hurricane blocked a Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ field goal attempt and scored a touchdown to take the title by a final tally of 33-27.<\/p>\n
Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ led 27-21 with just more than five minutes left in the game. Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ was forced to punt and Jamie Boyle\u2019s 44-yard kick was touched by the Knights. But the ball was not dead. Watts went back to the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ 46-yard line, picked it up and raced down the Tulsa sideline for a 54-yard touchdown. The Knights blocked the point-after-touchdown to keep the game tied at 27-27 and force the overtime period.<\/p>\n
In overtime, Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ had the ball first and was forced to settle for a 38-yard field goal attempt. But the kick was blocked, giving Tulsa the opportunity for victory with a score. Tulsa got a 17-yard run from Watts to give them a first-and-goal at the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ 6-yard line. Three plays later, Alex Singleton dove over from the 1-yard line to account for the winning score.<\/p>\n
Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ trailed 21-14 at halftime. But the Knights scored 13 points in the third quarter to grab the 27-21 advantage.<\/p>\n
With just more than four minutes remaining in the third quarter, the Knights took advantage of a 5-yard punt into the stiff wind and took over at the Tulsa 27-yard line. Five plays later, Murray plunged in from two yards out. But the point-after-touchdown was blocked by the Golden Hurricane\u2019s Trent Martin, keeping Tulsa in the lead, 21-20.<\/p>\n
Third-down conversions were key on the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ drive to regain the lead late in the third quarter. On third-and-22 at the beginning of the possession, quarterback Blake Bortles found Breshad Perriman for a 39-yard gain through the air. Then, later in the drive on third-and-6 from the Tulsa 28-yard line, Bortles dropped back to pass, scrambled up the middle and went 28 yards untouched for the go-ahead score, putting the Knights on top 27-21. That score set up Watts\u2019 punt return \u2013 the lone score of the fourth quarter \u2013 which forced the overtime.<\/p>\n
Tulsa took advantage of good field position to take an early 7-0 lead. Green found wide receiver Thomas Roberson over the middle for a 20-yard touchdown pass. The drive went just 38 yards after Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ punted 37 yards out of its own end zone into a wind blowing at more than 20 miles per hour. But it could have been worse. Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ fumbled the opening kickoff at its own 32-yard line but Kemal Ishmael forced a fumble that was recovered by Brandon Alexander on a fourth-down play inside the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ 10-yard line to thwart the Golden Hurricane scoring threat.<\/p>\n
On the second play of the second quarter, Bortles found Perriman along the end line of the end zone for an eight-yard scoring strike, tying the game at 7-7. Bortles was 4-of-4 passing for 56 yards on the 73-yard drive.<\/p>\n
With just less than five minutes remaining in the second quarter, Bortles tossed his second touchdown pass of the game to give Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ the lead. He bought time in the pocket, waited for a receiver to clear and found Quincy McDuffie with an eight-yard bullet for the score, putting the Knights on top 14-7.<\/p>\n
Tulsa answered with 2:35 left in the first half. The Golden Hurricane went 75 yards on the drive, capped by a 7-yard run from Alex Singleton, tying the game at 14-14. Tulsa then grabbed a 21-14 lead at the intermission, driving 80 yards in 1:02. Ja\u2019Terian Douglas went two yards to cap the drive with 0:00 showing on the second-quarter clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Knights fall 33-27 in first C-USA Championship Game to go to an extra period. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":43783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[503,6776,1810,1939,2436,5305,2757,3346,3847,202],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-43782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-blake-bortles","tag-breshad-perriman","tag-football","tag-george-oleary","tag-jeff-godfrey","tag-jj-worton","tag-latavius-murray","tag-ncaa","tag-quincy-mcduffie","tag-alumni"],"yoast_head":"\n