BYU Wins Armed Forces Bowl on Fake Spike Play

It sure wasn’t the prettiest offensive game you’ll ever see but when it mattered most, Riley Nelson drove the Cougars for the winning touchdown against Tulsa in the Armed Forces Bowl yesterday. The touchdown came off a fake spike the ball play, turned 2 yard touchdown toss to receiver Cody Hoffman. Hoffman took home MVP honors for the game with 8 catches for 122 yards and 3 touchdowns. The critical play in the drive though was Riley Nelson rushing for a first down on 4th and 9 to keep the Cougars alive.

BYU Armed Forces Bowl Highlights and Fake Spike touchdown – ESPN.com

The overall key to the game was really the BYU defense. Aside from the opening drive of the game when Tulsa drove the length of the field for a touchdown, the BYU defense really stepped up. They held Tulsa well below their season average of 33 points per game. The BYU punt team also had a key take away which led to another wild touchdown right before the half. As seen in the video clip, this was the play where Matt Reynold lost his helmet and still threw the block to free up Nelson for a TD toss to Hoffman.

Heroics aside, Riley Nelson was a rather pedestrian 17-40 for 250 yards but did have the 3 touchdown tosses to Hoffman. He also had 2 picks and another one that was called back due to a Tulsa offside penalty that had no bearing on the play. Nelson did not do much with his feet. He had 25 yards rushing. Of course that statistic is always skewed because QB sacks count as negative rushing yards. Again though, the biggest play of the game was when Nelson kept the final drive alive with a huge 4th down scramble. I’m still not sold on the Nelson leading the Cougars against big time defenses next year but the guy does win. Congrats to the Cougars on yet another bowl victory – their 3rd in a row.