Bowling Green’s Harold Fannin set the records in Thursday night’s 68 Ventures Bowl, but Arkansas State got the win.
The Red Wolves came away with a 38-31 victory at Hancock Whitney Stadium in Mobile, eclipsing a record-setting performance by the Falcons’ All-America tight end. Fannin caught 17 passes for 213 yards and a touchdown, setting FBS single-season marks for a tight end in both receptions and yards in the process.
“I think the biggest thing of the game, when you look back, is we never relinquished momentum,” Arkansas State coach Butch Jones said. “We gained momentum right from the start, and we never let that momentum go, even through the ebbs and flows of the game. Made some critical plays that we needed to. And we also showed some resolve and some resiliency. When things didn’t go our way, we were always able to match them.”
Arkansas State (8-5) won for the third time in five trips to Mobile’s bowl game, but did so for the first time on the South Alabama campus. The Red Wolves went 2-2 in bowl games played from 2012-15 across town at city-owned Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
Arkansas State’s Jaylen Raynor passed for 221 yards and two touchdowns, strikes of 79 and 6 yards to Corey Rucker — and also ran for 5-yard score. The 79-yard TD pass was the longest in the 26-year history of Mobile’s bowl game.
The Red Wolves also scored on special teams, as Courtney Jackson returned a punt 60 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter. Arkansas State’s Marcus Bradley also blocked a field goal in the second quarter.
Bowling Green (7-6) got its first touchdown in the kicking game as well, as backup quarterback Baron May snuck onto the field in punt formation and threw a 43-yard score to Malcolm Johnson. Regular quarterback Connor Bazelak had a big day in a losing effort, throwing for 390 yards and three touchdowns — eight yards to Jaison Patterson, 23 yards to Rahkeem Smith and four yards to Fannin, who hauled in a ball deflected by Arkansas State safety Justin Parks as he was falling down in the back of the end zone.
Fannin ends the season with 117 receptions for 1,555 yards, both the most in history by an FBS tight end. The catches total broke the record of 111 set by Rice’s James Casey in 2008, while the yardage total was previously 1,352 by Texas Tech’s Jace Amaro in 2013.
“Our theme was ‘Anyone But Him (Fannin),’ but when you have a great player — and, again, they do a great job schematically of different personnel groupings and being able to match him up,” Jones said. “Sometimes out of the backfield, he was just running choice routes, so they do a good job there. But I thought we were able to make them one-dimensional. They weren’t able to run the ball consistently and effectively, so that made them one-dimensional.”
Arkansas State led 24-21 at halftime, then converted a Bowling Green fumble on the first play of the second half into a touchdown. Raynor capped a 6-play, 34-yard drive when he hit Rucker for a 6-yard touchdown and a 31-21 lead.
Bowling Green’s Zach Long connected on a 38-yard field goal for the only other points of the third quarter. Arkansas State’s Clune Van Andel later kicked wide left from 33 yards away — his first miss in 18 straight attempts dating to early October — keeping it a one-score game entering the fourth quarter.
Bowling Green’s Long missed a 32-yard field goal with 10:19 left in the game, keeping Arkansas State up by seven. The Falcons went just 1-for-4 on field goals during the night, including the one that was blocked.
Arkansas State went back up by two scores on Zak Wallace’s 14-yard touchdown run with 3:10 to play, but Bowling Green answered with Bazelak’s 23-yard scoring pass to Smith to make it 38-31 at the 1:42 mark. The Falcons then tried an onside kick, but Hunter Summers recovered at the Red Wolves were able to run out the clock for the win.
Bowling Green lost despite an overall edge in yards (479 to 360) and time of possession (32:25 to 27:25). The Falcons missed three field goals and committed a number of penalties in the red zone on both sides of the ball.
“We’ve been a fairly disciplined football team, and unfortunately, we shot ourselves in the foot multiple times tonight,” Bowling Green coach Scot Loeffler said. “I’ve never been a part of the game (where) statistically, we dominate the game and lose the game. And when that does occur, it’s either turnovers or self-inflicting wounds with penalties. And that showed up.”
Wallace ended the night with 99 yards on 15 carries, most of it in the second half. In addition to his late touchdown, he also had a 19-yard run on third down to ice the game.
Fannin was voted the game’s Overall MVP, despite being on the losing team. Raynor was Offensive MVP and Parks — who totaled 10 tackles with a forced fumble and a tackle for loss — was Defensive MVP and Jackson Special Teams MVP.
Bowling Green is now 1-3 in bowl games played in Mobile, having beaten Memphis in the 2004 GMAC Bowl, then losing to Tulsa in 2008 and Georgia Southern in December 2015. (There were two bowl games played in Mobile in the 2015 calendar year, with Arkansas State losing the January game to Toledo.)
