2016 Holiday Bowl final score: Minnesota handles Washington State’s passing game, holds on to win

Just as we all expected, a Minnesota team that boycotted team activities two weeks ago and was missing 10 of its players because of suspension held Mike Leach’s vaunted passing attack in check most of the night. The Golden Gophers won the Holiday Bowl, 17-12.

In fact, until the latest stages of the game, the Cougars were in danger of this being only the third time a Mike Leach team had thrown for under 200 in the air raid maestro’s entire head coaching career. It would have been the first time it happened since Leach’s first season at Texas Tech in 2000.

Wazzu ended up with 264 yards passing because of garbage time yards gained while down double digits. Nearly 100 of them came in the game’s final five minutes.

The game was 6-3 at halftime, and there wasn’t a ton of offense to go around for either team. About the most fireworks this game dished out through most of the proceedings through the air was the tip drill touchdown that gave us the first touchdown of the game in the third period.

Early this week, Leach announced that QB Luke Falk would return for his senior season at Wazzu. Falk will definitely want to wash the taste of this bowl loss out of his mouth. He went 30-of-51 after starting the game 14-of-17. It was a largely shaky performance, albeit one without WRs River Cracraft and Gabe Marks. This late-game interception was just one example of a no-good night for the Cougars through the air.

The pick was ruled to not be a pick-six, but it led to a TD by the Gophers that should have put the game on ice, but not without some late-game histrionics.

After driving the ball down the field to score this touchdown ...

... the ensuing two-point conversion failed for Wazzu. But there was life after they had to run the play again, thanks to a targeting penalty. The Cougars false-started on the second attempt, and the Gophers called a timeout on the third. On the fourth go-around, Minnesota got flagged for offsides for good measure. In the end, Wazzu ended up with the ball near the original spot, and after all that, an incomplete pass on the goal line doomed the try on the fifth attempt — but not after a lengthy review to see if the ball broke the plane. There was just a little time between the TD and the final PAT attempt.

For Minnesota, this is the end to a wild bowl season. Two weeks ago, the Gophers players were set to boycott this game in response to 10 of their teammates being suspended. The suspensions stemmed from a September sexual assault investigation. In the end, the players relented on their demands after reading the woman’s description of the incident.