Friday bowl games: Military, Texas, Fight Hunger lead us into weekend

Via the University of Washington:

Seferian-Jenkins’ 2013 campaign disappointed, at least compared to his breakout 2012 season. His catches dipped from 69 to 36, and his yardage went from 852 yards to 450. He actually became more of a factor in the red zone, with eight of those 36 catches resulting in scores (compared to seven of 69 in 2012), but by and large the Washington passing game was effective with or without his help; Seferian-Jenkins never topped four catches in a game in 2013 except against FCS cupcake Idaho State (five catches).

New, young Syracuse fans in the Houston area. Possibly the coolest thing with which SB Nation has been associated all year. Endless kudos, Sean Keeley and the (growing) ‘Cuse fan base.

Maryland wins in 2013. Head coach Randy Edsall still catches rather justifiable flack for the 2011 season, in which he inherited the remnants of a 9-4 squad, drove off a ton of players, and went 2-10. That was, and will almost certainly be, the worst coaching performance of Edsall’s career, and it created a major question mark regarding his ability to lead a successful program.

Interim coach Marques Tuiasosopo, who took over for USC-bound Steve Sarkisian for the bowl game, led Washington to their first bowl win since 2010. The Huskies (9-4) won nine games for the first time since 2000.

Price left the game in the third quarter with an apparent rib injury, per the ESPN broadcast, and didn’t return. He completed 17 of 22 passes for 122 yards in his final college contest, and ran for 27 more yards. Price also threw one touchdown pass, the 75th scoring strike of his career, a Washington school record.

Despite leading by two scores early in the fourth quarter, Syracuse found itself needing to rally in the closing minutes to reclaim the lead. Hunt evaded a handful of Golden Gophers to run into the end zone from 12 yards out to give the Orange a four-point lead with just 1:11 remaining on the clock.

After an up-and-down season under first-year coach Scott Shafer, it was a fitting way to end the year. The team could’ve folded after the two quick scores, and it’s a testament to Schafer, the coaching staff and the players for battling back the way they did in the final minutes.

GROWN MAN 1: Hey, did you get the tickets?

GROWN MAN 2: Yeah, did you get the Loompa suits?

Yes, this play was whistled down before the ball or anything else even hit the ground.

Syracuse running back Brisly Estime, as you can see, was nowhere near the ground. No defenders or blockers were on the ground until the ball was already out. No cheerleaders were on the ground. Otto was not on the ground. Several photographers’ knees were on the ground. But the ball-carrier was not on the ground, not even close.

Marshall won the 2013 Military Bowl on Friday afternoon at Navy Memorial Stadium by a score of 31-20 over Maryland. The victory gives the Thundering Herd their first 10-win season since 2002.

Box Score Hero:

It wasn’t the best year to be a pretty good team from the western part of the United States. At least, it wasn’t good if you wanted to be recognized.

Of the top 37 teams in the current F/+ rankings, a whopping 11 of them are from either the Pac-12 or now or recently in the Mountain West: Stanford (third), Arizona State (sixth), Oregon (eighth), USC (12th), UCLA (13th), Washington (19th), BYU (26th), Arizona (30th), Utah State (33rd), Utah (34th), and Boise State (37th). If we’re comparing regions, the SEC and ACC, two BCS conferences in the most football-fertile area of the country, combined for only 14 in that sample.

Marshall vs. Maryland, 2:30 p.m., ESPN

This game is light on NFL prospects so just read Bill Connelly’s preview of it here. If you’re keying on NFL prospects, watch Maryland senior linebacker Marcus Whitfield. He has the size NFL teams will like (6-foot-3, 250 pounds) and the production (50 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss and nine sacks). While Whitfield had most of his production early in the season, he’s still a late-round flyer kind of player.

On December 16, Sean Keeley of SB Nation’s Syracuse blog, Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, wrote a post asking for donations to send Houston-area kids to the Texas Bowl. They had done this twice before, sending 32 and 48 children, respectively, to Syracuse games in 2010. But this year, they wanted to raise the bar a bit higher.

Keeley and the Syracuse community nearly quadrupled the sites original goal of $12,000, raising $44,444.44 to send more than 1,400 kids to the 2013 Texas Bowl to see Syracuse take on Minnesota.

In last week’s New Mexico Bowl preview, I mentioned that Washington State vs. Colorado State would have been a big-time battle in 2002. Well ... this year’s Texas Bowl matchup would have been enormous about 40 years earlier than that. Syracuse and Minnesota combined to win the 1959-60 national titles and once reflected the Midwest’s and Northeast’s college football dominance.

Times have changed, and the best recruits now come from other portions of the country, but in 2013, both the Orange and Golden Gophers played interesting, perhaps better-than-you-think football. Their reward: a trip south in late-December.

This is an odd bowl season, with favorites led by interim coaches and mid-majors favored over BCS-conference foes.

In the Military Bowl, a Marshall team that went 0-1 against BCS foes and fell at Middle Tennessee, Ohio, and Rice is favored over a Maryland team that went 5-5 against BCS foes and beat the one that beat Marshall (Virginia Tech).

The Terrapins started the season 4-0 and ranked on the strength of a blowout win over West Virginia, but any dreams of competing in the ACC died with a 63-0 loss to Florida State. After a close win over 2-10 Virginia, Maryland looked set to make a bowl game at 5-1, but three straight losses put those dreams in jeopardy. The Terps pulled off a dramatic overtime victory over Virginia Tech on the road to clinch eligibility, and two weeks later solidified their position with a blowout win at NC State.

Marshall started the season an uncertain 4-3 (including a triple-overtime loss to Virginia Tech), but won five straight games to stake its claim as the top team in the Conference USA East. The last of those wins came in the regular season finale against East Carolina in a winner-take-all scenario for the division. The following week, the Thundering Herd were upset by Rice, putting them in this game.

This bowl season has a few intriguing regional games, and the Fight Hunger Bowl between BYU and Washington is certainly one of them.

The Cougars started the season with a puzzling loss to Virginia, and put a historic beat down on Texas the next week by a final score of 40-21. After a loss to Utah (another puzzling one), the Cougars won five in a row -- all against bowl teams (with the biggest being Utah State, Georgia Tech and Boise State). Losses down the stretch to Wisconsin and Notre Dame prevented BYU from reaching higher heights, but with two sophomores leading a very strong rushing offense, they have promise for next season.

The Texas Bowl matchup of Syracuse and Minnesota may not be the sexiest of the bowl season, but if you like a grind-it-out, rush-heavy contest, this is your game. Both teams have mobile but iffy passers at quarterback, and they probably will try to lean on their rushing attacks as much as they can.

And that could prove the deciding factor in what Vegas expects to be a close one. That might be bad news for Minnesota, which is allowing 4.5 yards per carry and 5.7 yards per play. Syracuse’s defense hasn’t been significantly better overall (5.4 yards allowed per play), but it is limiting opponents to 3.9 yards per carry.

They enter the Texas Bowl betting arena in Houston as a four-point favorite over the Syracuse Orange, according to most sportsbooks monitored by SB Nation’s lines partner OddsShark.com.

However, Minnesota hasn’t won a bowl game since the 2004 Music City Bowl, going 0-5 SU in its five postseason appearances since.

Washington (Pac-12, 8-4 SU, 6-6 ATS, 6-6 OU) beat the teams it was supposed to this season with losses coming to Oregon, Stanford, Arizona State, and UCLA. It went just 1-3 ATS in those four defeats.

The Cougars closed out the season going 2-2 SU in their last four games with losses to Wisconsin and Notre Dame and they were 0-3-1 ATS during that run. The total stayed UNDER in four of their last five games. They were just 1-5 ATS on the road this season and the total stayed UNDER in five of those six games.