2016 Foster Farms Bowl final score: Utah beats Indiana in a dramatic game

Utah won the 2016 Foster Farms Bowl on Wednesday night, beating Indiana, 26-24.

It turned out to be a dramatic evening. Utah led 17-7 at one point in the second quarter, but Indiana battled back and took a 24-23 lead on a Devine Redding touchdown run in the fourth quarter. The teams traded stops after that, and IU kicker Griffin Oakes missed a 40-yard field goal with 5:34 left that kept Utah within a point.

The Utes took the ball back after that and drove downfield, with running back Joe Williams leading the way. Andy Phillips kicked his fourth field goal of the night from 27 yards out to put the Utes ahead by two with inside 90 seconds to play.

Despite getting into deep trouble a few times, Indiana got the ball across midfield with five seconds left, though it moved backward on a false start. A last-ditch try for the end zone was knocked out of Richard Lagow’s hands, and the game ended.

Williams was a force for Utah. He ran for 222 yards and a touchdown on 26 carries, with an 8.5-yard average. Indiana couldn’t come up with any method to stop him.

It’s another disappointment against a good team for Indiana. The Hoosiers have had a bunch of these in recent seasons, including this year against Penn State and Michigan.

Utah had a strong season, though it fell short of some of its midseason promise. The Utes were 4-0 and 7-1 at points, but they lost three of their last four regular season games. Two of those (to Washington and Colorado) were completely normal and acceptable, but another one (at home to Oregon) was very much not.

Indiana had a weird season, though its weirdest developments came after the 12-game slate ended. The Hoosiers fired head coach Kevin Wilson amid player treatment concerns earlier this month and elevated his defensive coordinator, Tom Allen, to replace him immediately and permanently. Santa Clara provided the stage for Allen’s debut before he gets a chance to more substantively dig in next season. He took over under unusual circumstances, but that doesn’t mean he’s destined to fail.

As it tends to be for college football games at Levi’s Stadium, the home of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, attendance was not great.