College football’s best QB-WR connection went out in style

It would have been wrong if Mason Rudolph’s final touchdown pass had gone to anyone other than James Washington.

Over the last eight seasons, Oklahoma State has only once ranked outside of the Off. S&P+ top 20. The Pokes’ offense has been one of college football’s surest things, even while they have attempted to stay on the cutting edge of offense.

The blip came in 2014. OSU’s offense fell into a midseason funk, averaging just 10 points per game over the course of a month. With three games left, Mike Gundy tore the redshirt off a freshman named Rudolph. It was a bit of a desperate move.

Rudolph’s first game was a 49-28 loss to Baylor, but the next week he threw for 273 yards and two scores in a Bedlam upset of OU in Norman. After that initial loss, OSU would go 32-9 over the rest of Rudolph’s tenure.

Another freshman by the name of Washington caught eight passes for 172 yards and two scores during Rudolph’s late-2014 audition. He would go for 1,087 yards in 2015, 1,380 in 2016, and 1,423 in 2017. Rudolph-to-Washington was the most consistently awesome deep-ball combination in college football for years.

You can watch every touchdown the duo connected for here. Here’s the last one:

The first 25 minutes or so of the Camping World Bowl played out exactly to Virginia Tech’s specifications. The Hokies’ physical line controlled the proceedings. They held OSU to a field goal and a punt on their first two drives. They drove 76 yards over 4:18 to take an early 7-3 lead, then mauled the Pokes over the course of an 18-play, 82-yard, 10-minute drive.

Unfortunately, the 18th play of that drive was a fumble recovered by OSU’s Ramon Richards. OSU added a field goal then scored a touchdown in the final minute of the half. Virginia Tech was playing the game it wanted, but the Pokes led by six at half.

Rudolph found Washington for a 65-yard score that made it 27-14. After the slow start, Rudolph finished 21-of-32 for 351 yards and two scores; Washington had five catches for 128 yards, and fellow senior Marcell Ateman had five for 107.

OSU probably hoped for a better record than 10-3 in 2017. The banged-up Cowboys dropped a September contest with TCU, couldn’t get past Oklahoma in a Bedlam shootout, and fell behind Kansas State by 29 points before coming up just short. That perhaps cast a pall on what was supposed to be a special finish for this incredible pass-catch combination.

But back-to-back-to-back 10-win seasons in Stillwater? There are certainly worse consolations.

Stanford did score in the second half. A few times, actually. That right there kills some of the parallels between Thursday night’s Alamo Bowl and the one from two years ago. Still, there are better things than facing a post-halftime TCU in San Antonio.

In 2015’s Alamo Bowl, TCU pulled off one of the greatest comebacks you’ll ever see, spotting Oregon a 31-0 halftime lead before forcing overtime and eventually winning, 47-41. In 2017, the Frogs merely trailed 21-10 at halftime and 31-23 after three quarters. And they merely scored on two massive eruptions early in the fourth quarter to take the lead.

Jalen Reagor’s 93-yard touchdown catch and Desmon White’s 76-yard punt return gave TCU a 36-31 lead, but the responses didn’t end there. Stanford drove 76 yards in 10 plays and five minutes and took the lead back with 6:42 left on JJ Arcega-Whiteside’s muscular 4-yard score. But passes to Reagor and White helped to set up a 33-yard Cole Bunce field goal with 3:07 remaining, and Innis Gaines’ interception sealed the deal.

This was fun. What was likely Bryce Love’s final collegiate game ended with 26 carries and 145 yards — his 69-yard run early in the third quarter was quite the punctuation mark — and TCU quarterback Kenny Hill’s career ended in fitting fashion, too, with a couple of boneheaded mistakes, 60 rushing yards, 300-plus passing yards, and a win. The Texas A&M transfer was often maddening, but the Frogs were 10-3 this year all the same.

After last night, here’s your current list of 2017’s top five bowl games.

It’s already a pretty great list, and we’ve still got 14 more bowls, plus a national title game to go.

Case in point:

Virginia began 2017 with a 5-1 record but needed a tight win over Georgia Tech to eke out bowl eligibility. Simply getting to the postseason for the first time in six years made this season a success, but the Cavaliers appeared mostly kaput a while back, and the bowl break didn’t allow for a rebound.

Navy did whatever the hell it wanted in Annapolis. UVA’s Joe Reed returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and that was basically the last good play the Cavaliers made.

Navy quarterbacks Zach Abey and Malcolm Perry combined to throw one pass (it was incomplete) and rush 29 times for 202 yards and seven touchdowns. That’s pretty much all you need to know. The Midshipmen spent most of the second half trying not to score after going up 28-7 at halftime, but it proved impossible: UVA muffed a punt to set up an 11-yard scoring drive, then punter Lester Coleman accidentally kneeled to field a low snap, setting up a 23-yard TD drive.

It gave us a reminder of what Navy — inconsistent at QB and shakier than normal in 2017 — is capable of, but only one team showed up.

Yep, duds happen. Especially when your starting quarterback is ruled out at the last minute. Washington State’s Luke Falk didn’t play against Michigan State following wrist surgery, and the Cougars offense started out about as poorly as possible. Four of their five first-half drives were three-and-outs, and they only got a field goal out of the other one.

Michigan State’s offense exploded for four straight length-of-the-field drives in the second and third quarters, as Wazzu’s defense began to realize it wasn’t going to get any help. The Spartans tacked on a short-field score after a fumble, and that was that. MSU led 35-3 late in the third quarter and cruised.

WSU backup QB Tyler Hilinski wasn’t bad — he did complete 39 of 50 passes, after all. But those completions went almost nowhere, and head coach Mike Leach fell into his worst habits, giving WSU running backs a grand total of three carries.

It was a nice capper for Michigan State, though. The Spartans were inconsistent, but they still rebounded from 2016’s disastrous 3-9 campaign (and an offseason full of attrition) by beating Michigan, ending Penn State’s national title hopes, and going 10-3. Mark Dantonio: still a good coach.