Houston vs. Vanderbilt, 2014 BBVA Compass Bowl: Commodores win second straight bowl game

Nine-win seasons for Vanderbilt in the last 90 years. Also; nine-win seasons for Vanderbilt in the last two years. It has to be getting old for VU fans to have to deal with “James Franklin to _____” rumors every year, but he keeps recruiting better than Vandy is supposed to recruit, and he keeps winning games. That probably eases the anxiety at least a bit.

And they won nine games. At Vanderbilt. James Franklin is a hell of a coach, whether this was his final game at Vandy, or whether he’s there for another 20 years.

O’Korn threw another interception with about 2:30 left, allowing Vanderbilt to punch the ball in two plays later on Jerron Seymour’s two-yard run. That finalized the game’s score at 41-24.

For the Commodores, it was their third straight bowl game and second straight bowl win, both new marks for a program that has struggled historically.

Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin, fresh off an 8-4 regular season and preparing his team for Saturday’s BBVA Compass Bowl against the Houston Cougars, may be ascending to the NFL shortly after his season ends today.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported just hours before the kickoff of the BBVA Compass Bowl that Franklin had received multiple requests for interviews with NFL franchises:

By the time we reach this point in bowl season, we’ve gotten pretty silly. Bowl results are used as the clearest proof of conference superiority or inferiority, but with 30 of 35 bowls in the books, the results are almost certainly going to be contradictory. Mississippi State killed Rice, Ole Miss beat an evenly matched (on paper) Georgia Tech team, LSU handled Iowa as expected, Missouri slipped past Oklahoma State, and South Carolina beat a favored Wisconsin team. So the SEC is properly rated, right?

But Texas A&M barely beat Duke, Georgia lost to Nebraska, and Alabama lost to Oklahoma! Overrated!

Vanderbilt is bowling for the third straight year under head coach James Franklin -- a first for the SEC school -- and will face AAC opponent Houston in the BBVA Compass Bowl. Television coverage will begin at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN.

Houston started the season 5-0 with a win over Rice, and was a one-point loss to BYU away from an 8-0 start and likely a high ranking in the polls. The Cougars fell back to earth when facing the elite of the AAC, dropping close games to UCF, Louisville and Cincinnati, none by more than a touchdown. They finished the season with a 34-0 drubbing of SMU and will look for their ninth win in Birmingham, Ala.

Houston (8-4 SU, 10-2 ATS, 5-7 OU) kicked off 2013 with a sensational 5-0 straight-up and against the spread start. The Cougars cooled off down the stretch with a 3-4 SU mark over their last seven games, but still helped their backers out with a 5-2 ATS record over that time.

Despite having one of the worst passing defenses in the country – they rank 116th nationally, allowing 276.2 yards through the air on average – the Cougars worked the bend-don’t-break strategy well while allowing only 20.2 points per game. Houston was inconsistent on offense this year but managed a respectable 33.9 points per game overall.

In mid-November, it looked nearly impossible that Oklahoma could find their way to a BCS bowl. Sure, they had wins over ranked Notre Dame and Texas Tech teams, but neither was looking quite as good as the numbers to the left of their names might have suggested. The only real challenges the Sooners faced were against Texas and Baylor -- both resulted in blowout losses.

But Oklahoma recovered, easily defeating Iowa State and Kansas State before pulling out a dramatic upset win in Stillwater to rob rival Oklahoma State of the conference crown while simultaneously taking away their BCS berth.

Vanderbilt quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels will not play in the 2014 BBVA Compass Bowl against Houston after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ACL. Carta-Samuels tore his ACL on Oct. 19 but still managed to play in Vanderbilt’s final three games, going 3-0 against Kentucky, Tennessee and Wake Forest.

Carta-Samuels, a senior, will now aim to participate in Vanderbilt’s pro day in the spring. He finished the season throwing for 2,268 yards, 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions while leading the Commodores to an 8-4 record.

The BBVA Compass Bowl used to be the PapaJohns.com Bowl, but fortunately we don’t have to actually write out or say “dot com” when referring to the name of the bowl anymore, because that just sounds silly (sorry, Go Daddy). Now the bank sponsors it, and the game will pit two power conference teams against each other -- the AAC against the SEC. Historically, the game has been a blowout, with just one of the seven being decided by less than a touchdown.

Date and time, ET: Jan. 4, 2014, 1 p.m.