2015 Alamo Bowl results: UCLA weathers Kansas State rally

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t always “play to the whistle” on every play of a football game. The defender cannot hit a quarterback after he slides or it will be a penalty. If a kick returner or receiver takes a knee and gives himself up, players on the other team can’t still go and hit him. If someone has the ball and is already down, but not by contact, you can’t go ahead and lay the hammer on him or you might get an unnecessary roughness penalty.

What do all of these situations have in common? The person with the ball is deemed to have given himself up on the play and thus the play is over. These rules are for safety reasons as much as anything because a player is never more vulnerable than when he is already on the ground. It makes sense, right? The offensive player gives up the right to any additional yardage in trade for not getting the hell knocked out of him while he is already down or taking a knee.

In Friday’s four bowls, the losing teams heading into the fourth quarter outscored the winning teams, 72-22. Washington trailed Oklahoma State by 27-14, Kansas State trailed UCLA, 34-21, Iowa trailed Tennessee, 42-7, and Houston trailed Pitt, 24-6. Only one of those came back to win (Houston), but three games became interesting.

Comebacks are what we will remember most about this bowl season (aside from, you know, the first Playoff). We had seen Central Michigan make up 34 points of a 35-point fourth quarter deficit in the Bahamas Bowl, and we had seen Michigan State come back from 20 down in the fourth. That KSU almost came back from down 31-6 at halftime, and that Houston DID come back from down 34-13 with four minutes left, just added to the lore.

Kansas State tried to fight back, but eventually lost, 40-35, to UCLA. Bruins head coach Jim Mora did go over to shake Bill Snyder’s hand after the game, but the Kansas State head coach looked a tad bummed out by the brevity of Mora’s postgame niceties.

Via ESPN:

(GIFs via ESPN)

Kansas State couldn’t recover the kick and ended up losing, 40-35, but the cheeky attempt by Matthew McCrane did appear to catch several players on the receiving team off guard. Caleb Sturgis of the Miami Dolphins tried this in the NFL season, and Rice actually recovered an onside kick off a rabona last year.

It was 7-0 Bruins less than three minutes into the game, with Hundley capping off a quick six play drive with a 10-yard touchdown run. UCLA built their lead to 17-0 by the end of the first quarter, and after a pair of Kansas State field goals, they responded with two touchdowns off of Wildcat turnovers to build a 31-6 lead at the half. In the first 30 minutes, the Bruins out-gained Kansas State 312 yards to 104, and out-rushed them 183 yards to only 15.

GIF credit: ESPN

The first game gives us a double dose of interim coaches. Houston defensive coordinator David Gibbs steps in for fired head coach Tony Levine, while Pitt offensive coordinator will fill in on the Panthers’ sideline after head man Paul Chryst left for Wisconsin.

If experience playing for interims means anything (and it almost certainly does not), give Pitt the edge; fifth-year Panther seniors are now under their third interim. But dual interims make motivation a huge question mark.

Every year, there’s going to be one bowl game that feels like a New Year’s Six bowl even though it isn’t officially in that lineup. This year, that bowl is the Alamo Bowl, which will match up two top 15 teams in what should be a very fun offensive showcase.

Yet again, Kansas State has put together a very impressive season behind the magic of Bill Snyder, as quarterback Jake Waters and star wide receiver Tyler Lockett led the Wildcats past Oklahoma and Texas and nearly led them to an upset of Auburn en route to a 9-3 record.

Despite their strong regular season play in recent years, the Kansas State Wildcats are just 1-5 straight up and against the spread over their last six bowl appearances. The Wildcats will be looking for more favorable results in the Alamo Bowl at 6:45 p.m. ET on Friday against the UCLA Bruins.

Kansas State is a 1.5-point underdog in the Alamo Bowl, according to sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. Both teams finished the season with 9-3 SU records, but Kansas State held the clear ATS edge at 8-4 over UCLA at 4-8 ATS. The betting favorite is 5-1 ATS over the last six Alamo Bowl games.

The Valero Alamo Bowl was never part of the BCS and it was not included in the brand new College Football Playoff, but that has never stopped the folks in Texas from bringing a couple of terrific teams to San Antonio each season. This year, we’ll see UCLA take on Kansas State in a big-time matchup.

Now that all College Football Playoff games are held on New Year’s Day, the Alamo Bowl will likely take on a bigger stage on Jan. 2. The only other bowl games that day are the TaxSlayer and Armed Forces Bowls, neither of which will draw in the casual fan. The Alamo Bowl is, however, well known nationally and tends to feature a ton of scoring and some great offensive action. So while it may not be one of the prestigious New Year’s Day bowls, there will still be plenty of reasons to tune in.