Appalachian State beats Ohio in dramatic 2015 Camellia Bowl

Including a delightful Celebration Bowl between NC A&T and Alcorn State — a 41-34 A&T win — there were eight return touchdowns (three punt returns, a kick return, three interception returns, and a fumble return) and 10 touchdowns on gains of 30-plus yards in Saturday’s six bowls.

Eighteen touchdowns via defense, special teams, or huge gainer, combining to gain 1,082 yards. Are you not entertained?

Despite taking the two middle quarters off, Appalachian State won its first ever bowl game in its first ever bowl appearance, beating Ohio, 31-29, in the Camellia Bowl, with a last-second field goal from Zach Matics, who missed his first two field goal attempts on the day.

The Mountaineers were ecstatic.

Scooping up a fumble to score is difficult, so Ohio’s Jovon Johnson had a better idea ... he just took the ball out of Appalachian State quarterback Taylor Lamb’s hands, then brought it all the way back to the end zone. That return put the Bobcats up 24-7.

Give Johnson credit for that strip. He hung onto the ball with one hand after grabbing it.

Appalachian State earned its first taste of FBS fame when it beat Michigan in the Big House back in 2007. Now, it can take the next step forward in its football evolution by winning the first bowl in program history.

The 10-2 Mountaineers will take on 8-4 Ohio in the 2015 Camellia Bowl on Dec. 19. App State rolled through a stellar season in just its second year in college football’s premier division. The team rolled through its opponents in 2015; nine of its wins came by 18 points or more. Its only losses came against No. 1 Clemson and eventual Sun Belt champions Arkansas State.

In this week’s Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody, I briefly and unfairly touched on how a 10-2 finish for Appalachian State almost felt disappointing because of how high the Mountaineers had set the bar midseason.

My logic was simple: seven games into 2015, Scott Satterfield’s Mountaineers had played at a top-30 level. Losing only to top-ranked Clemson, ASU had wrecked Howard, Old Dominion, Wyoming, Georgia State and Louisiana-Monroe by an average score of 45-6. And in what we thought was the Sun Belt’s marquee battle, the Mountaineers welcomed Georgia Southern on a Thursday night, went down 7-0 early, then went on a 31-0 run to cruise to victory.

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A relatively boring start to the 2014 college bowl season was kickstarted by calamity in the fourth quarter of the inaugural Camellia Bowl. Now, the second edition of the game will look to climb from its spot as the lowest-rated bowl game.

Granted, there was a Camellia Bowl before it made its triumphant return in 2014, but the previous matchups served as postseason playoff games for lower divisions. For three years it was the NAIA Championship game, before becoming a quarterfinals game for the NCAA College Division before it was reclassified as Division II and Division III.