College football Thursday: Baylor-UCLA up after Cincinnati, San Jose State wins

0. FBS seasons that have ended with San Jose State in the Top 25. That number will change to 1 when this year’s final polls are released. Despite the loss of head coach Mike MacIntyre, the Spartans finished strong against Bowling Green, wrapping up an 11-2 campaign with a 29-20 win.

9. Duke trips inside Cincinnati’s 40-yard line. On average, you should be scoring at least about four points per trip, otherwise you are blowing some serious opportunities. Duke did score three touchdowns and kick two field goals, but the Blue Devils also missed a field goal and committed three turnovers. Average points per trip: 3.0. And really, it’s even worse than that. Duke twice lost fumbles inside Cincinnati’s 5, and their third turnover was an interception returned for a touchdown. And two of those three turnovers happened in the final two minutes of the game. That’s how you go from what looks like a seven-point win to a 14-point loss in the blink of an eye.

Hundley and the Bruins looked like they might get back in to the game in the third quarter when they held the Bears scoreless for almost the entire quarter before allowing Martin to get in the end zone for the third time in the game. Hundley hit Shaquelle Evans for a 24-yard touchdown pass to make it 42-19 early in the fourth quarter before Florence ran the ball in to make it 49-19.

Florence wasn’t the only quarterback to set a school record Thursday night. Hundley set the Bruins’ single season passing record during the third quarter of the game, finishing with 3,740 yards passing.

The Holiday Bowl halftime show is supposed to feature “world-class pageantry, marching bands and an unbelievable fireworks display that you have to see to believe!” Instead we’re trying to figure out why it says Hep C on the field. Maybe you can figure it out.

[Photo from @BryanDFischer]

Just before this touchdown run, ESPN’s play-by-play man Dave Pasch said “UCLA can’t give up another score here.” And oh how we laughed, and experienced mirth because everyone watching this knew UCLA could, and indeed would allow another touchdown to give Baylor a 35-7 halftime lead.

Then laughter gave way to awe, and maybe some gigglng joy, because that is Lache Seastrunk, who is not only blisteringly fast, but also does that little Walter Payton-style kick/shift/juke when he wants to make safeties look like traffic cones. The Holiday Bowl: it’s a bowl game and an emotional buffet, albeit one where Jim Mora is only allowed to eat shame (and maybe some limp iceberg lettuce with light ranch dressing.)

Basically, what happened is as follows:

Look through SB Nation’s many excellent college football blogs to find your team’s community.

From there, the Bearcats reeled off 27 unanswered points to take what looked like a commanding 11-point lead with the Blue Devils struggling to score as Kay, who finished with 332 yards passing and 76 yards on the ground, shined brightly. But Duke woke back up just in time and the teams traded scores until the end of the game.

Renfree finished with 358 yards passing and helped the Blue Devils equalize the score before Cincinnati ended it with the final two touchdowns of the night.

Look through SB Nation’s many excellent college football blogs to find your team’s community.

Just before halftime in the Belk Bowl, Duke lined up for a 53-yard field goal, booting it through to reclaim a 19-17 lead. Cincinnati was flagged for an illegal substitution on the play, which, great! The Blue Devils can decline that, right?

No. The flag voided the play, and Duke had to kick again. The 48-yarder sailed wide left, and Cincy effectively used a penalty (intentional or not) to ice the kicker. It was stupid, and you can bet that rule will be changed, albeit too late to restore Duke’s lead.

Every day should be Will Monday.

It was like watching a remote-controlled football, except no remote-controlled anything has ever behaved as well as this football did. Remote control things all suck and are useless. Maybe they’re great now, but I was born in the 1980s, and we were lucky to have remote-controlled cars that weren’t connected to the remote by a cord. That’s not even remote. Didn’t work at all, either.

Jordan Byas made a good read to shut down this play by Cincinnati, and laid a heavy load upon arrival. He did it with poor form, however, leading with his head and knocking himself to the ground for a spell.

He tried to scramble back to his feet, but was very clearly woozy. Teammates urged him off the field, but two plays later, there he was again, making another bad tackle and clacking his helmet against a Bearcats tight end.

He said “hell” about the Devils, making this one fiery pregame speech. Fiery.

We would also present Cincinnati’s pregame coach speech, but Cincinnati doesn’t have any coaches. At least as far as anyone is aware. Total Lord of the Flies out here in Charlotte. ESPN noted the Bearcats had to recruit an office assistant’s husband to help with play-charting. Wish Belk sold coaches.

We’re not exactly sure what in the world this bear is all about. Then again, we’re not even sure what Belk is and why there’s a bowl game named after he/she/it. Apparently the bear’s name is “Belkie,” which brings up a number of Perfect Strangers references we could make, but that would be ridiculous! What we do know is this bear is cute enough to lure us in.

Sadly, Belkie is not playing the game. If so, we could at least use puns like, “Belk Bear was plushed out of bounds” or “stuffed at the line.”

Despite a fumble that led to a Falcon touchdown score -- and probably gave the Falcons a shot in the arm -- the junior more than made up for it in his passing even though the No. 24 Spartans (11-2) hardly got support from the run game. Fales ended his stellar season with a 33-for-43 passing performance, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Fales started the day off with a 33-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Nunn five minutes into the game, but the Falcons answered with two field goals.

The football part is great. Players getting to take trips is great. But expecting fans to fly across the country two days after Christmas for an exhibition game, then charging their schools for it either way, is not great.

Look through SB Nation’s many excellent college football blogs to find your team’s community.

Would you like to watch a punter throw a fit? Probably not. How about a punter who’s really mad about not receiving a penalty flag after being grazed while punting? No. How about a punter who complained so hard to the refs that he hurt his ribs and is currently sitting on the bench, apparently unable to play?

SJSU currently ranks No. 38 in the country in punting. No Spartans besides Waid booted a punt this year. Ramifications are massive.

George Winn (RB, Cincinnati, Sr.). Duke’s defense ranks an incredible 113th in Rushing S&P+. In this sense, “incredible” means “Their run defense was worse than those of Eastern Michigan (No. 112), winless Southern Miss (111), Texas State (107), and UTSA (106), and they still reached bowl eligibility.” In other words, George Winn might be finishing his Cincy career with an exclamation mark. The senior from Southfield, Michigan, rushed for 165 yards and three touchdowns versus Syracuse, for 125 yards versus Louisville and for 119 yards versus South Florida. He has had a bit of an up-and-down year, but he should find wide running lanes available to him in Charlotte.

1. Duke is in a bowl game! Once a marginal national power (they went to two Rose Bowls, two Orange Bowls and a Sugar Bowl from 1938 to 1957), the Blue Devils have spent most of the last five decades struggling to keep up with the rest of the ACC on the gridiron. But in five seasons, David Cutcliffe has slowly built a semi-respectable program, and now he gets the payoff: Duke’s first bowl bid since 1994 and third since 1960. If you like rarity in your bowl games, the Belk Bowl is for you!

Bowling Green is perfectly capable of doing just that, though. They don’t score a lot of points but the Falcons rank ninth in the FBS in points against, allowing their opponents to score an average of just 15.8 points per contest.

Dec. 27, 3 p.m. ET