New Mexico State beat Bowling Green 24-19 to win the Quick Lane Bowl. What happened, who was the player of the game, and what does it all mean?
New Mexico State 24, Bowling Green 19 Quick Lane Bowl What Happened, Player of the Game, What It All Means
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Quick Lane Bowl What Happened
– New Mexico State got up 17-0 helped by two touchdown passes from Diego Pavia, but his legs closed it out. Bowling Green roared back in the fourth quarter with 12 points helped by a blocked field goal for a punt and a 19-yard touchdown catch from Tyrone Broden, but it couldn’t get the ball back. Pavia and the Aggie offense were able to grind down the final 6:27 minutes converting three third down tries.
– Bowling Green lost starting quarterback Matt McDonald early in the game with an apparent head injury. The offense sputtered without him, but it finally got kickstarted with a kickoff return for a touchdown from Ta’ron Keith early in the second half coming off a field goal.
– The Falcons turned it over twice, but they were both killers. They had their chances, but stalled drives, failed third down stops, and those giveaways kept them from every getting control of the game. That had almost everything to do with …
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Quick Lane Bowl Player of the Game
Diego Pavia, QB New Mexico State
He completed 17-of-29 passes for 167 yards and two scores with a pick, and ran 12 times for 65 yards. More than anything else, he was brilliant on third downs, which led to …
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Quick Lane Bowl Fun Stats
– Third Down Conversions: New Mexico State 11-of-17 – Bowling Green 3-of-9
– Time of Possession: New Mexico State 38:23 – Bowling Green 21:37
– In relief of Matt McDonald, Bowling Green QB Camden Orth completed 14-of-22 passes for 191 yards and a touchdown, and ran for times for 16 yards
Quick Lane Bowl What It All Means
How massive is this for New Mexico State? It’s the first ever bowl win for head coach Jerry Kill – he was 0-2 at Northern Illinois and 0-3 at Minnesota – the program goes off to Conference USA with a winning season – the first since 2017 and just the second since 2002. The Aggies won a bowl in 2017 – that was the first time it got one since 1960. Now they’re 3-0-1 all-time in bowls.
Bowling Green got to a bowl game. Start with that. Yeah, this was a losing season, but for a program that was so bad for so long – it didn’t win more than four games in a year from 2016 to 2021 – this was finally a step-forward season under Scot Loeffler in his fourth season at the helm.
Would it have been different if McDonald didn’t get knocked out of the game early? That’s not quite fair to either side – Bowling Green had its chances, but blew it. Now the program hasn’t won a bowl game since 2015 and is just 1-6 since taking down the 2004 GMAC.
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