Paterno's Lions win Alamo Bowl
Joe Paterno's 500th game as Penn State coach ended the way most have -- with JoePa on top.
Evan Royster broke a tie with a 38-yard touchdown run, and Deon Butler scored on a controversial 30-yard catch as Penn State erased an early 14-point deficit to beat Texas A&M 24-17 on Saturday night at the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio.
Paterno, college football's leader in bowl appearances (34), led the Nittany Lions in a thriller that brought him his record 23rd postseason win.
Nervously pacing the sideline in his standard khakis and black sneakers, Paterno couldn't breathe easy until the clock ticked down to zero in a roller coaster of a game.
Texas A&M's Stephen McGee led a 15-play drive to the Penn State 2 before losing 4 yards on fourth-and-goal after slipping on an option play with about eight minutes left.
Another A&M drive ended with a punt with two minutes left, and Penn State ran out the clock.
The Nittany Lions secured their third straight bowl victory and spoiled Gary Darnell's one-game stint as interim head coach. Darnell took over Nov. 23, when Dennis Franchione resigned, and A&M has hired Mike Sherman, currently offensive coordinator for the Houston Texans, take over as head coach in 2008.
Liberty Bowl: Mississippi State's win in the Liberty Bowl was the kind of game coach Sylvester Croom's mentor would have loved.
Playing in Memphis, Tenn., at the site of the Paul "Bear" Bryant's final game 25 years ago, the Bulldogs used power running and a dominant defense to beat Central Florida 10-3 and earn a milestone win for the once dormant program.
"I've said quite often we don't need style points," said Croom, the Southeastern Conference coach of the year who played and coached under Bryant at Alabama for 11 seasons. "We just find a way to win."
Anthony Dixon powered in from the 1 for the winning touchdown with 1:54 to go, and most valuable player Derek Pegues picked off 2 passes in a game featuring anemic offenses and 17 punts.
The Bulldogs (8-5) kept the Knights (10-4) out of the end zone and Kevin Smith from breaking the single-season rushing record. The junior finished with 119 yards, leaving him 61 shy of Barry Sanders' mark of 2,628 yards set for Oklahoma State in 1988.
"I was trying to find the holes, but they were playing faster than us," said Smith, who has already said he will return for his senior season.
Meineke Bowl: Put to rest those derogatory nicknames for Wake Forest. There's nothing weak about the Demon Deacons under coach Jim Grobe.
Behind do-it-all receiver Kenneth Moore and a swarming defense full of big plays, the Wake Forest rallied to beat fellow upstart Connecticut 24-10 in the Meineke Bowl in Charlotte, N.C.
Often called "Weak Forest" for a long history of ineptitude, Wake Forest (9-4) secured the second-most wins in school history, behind only last year's improbable 11-3 mark that included an Atlantic Coast Conference title and an Orange Bowl berth.
"You know 20 wins in two years for little ol' Wake Forest isn't too bad," Grobe said.
While this year wasn't as stellar, Wake Forest finished with 9 wins in its last 11 games -- including a bowl win after last year's loss to Louisville in the school's first Bowl Championship Series appearance.
The Demon Deacons had to come from behind to do it, reeling off the final 24 points after falling behind 10-0 at halftime against the Huskies, who were playing in only their second bowl game.
It was a disappointing end to the Huskies' best season since they completed the move from what used to be called Division I-AA six years ago. UConn (9-4) was limited to 9 first downs and failed to score an offensive touchdown.