Foster Farms Bowl: Tommy Armstrong Jr leads Nebraska past UCLA, 37-29
The Nebraska Cornhuskers scored 30 unanswered points to overcome an early 14-point deficit to beat the UCLA Bruins in the Foster Farms Bowl to finish the year with a 6-7 record.
Nebraska lost seven games by a combined 31 points during their 5-7 regular season and in four of those games, they lost on the final play in a season with more heartbreak than joy. However, they were fortunate to extend their season with an invitation to the Foster Farms Bowl because there weren’t enough bowl-eligible teams, and Mike Riley saved their best game of the season for the last game of the season in the 37-29 win over UCLA in the Foster Farms Bowl.
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Quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. has struggled with fundamentals and his decision-making during his time in Lincoln, but he showed some signs against UCLA that he could be in line for a strong senior season in 2016.
Armstrong finished the night 12 of 19 passing for 174 yards with one touchdown and had 10 rushes for 76 yards and a touchdown. His touchdown pass to Stanley Morgan Jr. in the third quarter put Nebraska on top 27-21 and erased the 21-7 lead UCLA built in the early moments of the second quarter.
After a 7-7 first quarter, UCLA opened up the scoring with a pair of touchdown drives that ended with passes from freshman phenom quarterback Josh Rosen to Kenneth Walker III and Nate Starks, but it was all Nebraska after the midway point of the second quarter.
Nebraska got rushing touchdowns from four different players, but oddly enough, none from leading rusher Devine Ozigbo who had 80 yards on 20 carries. As a team, Nebraska ran the ball 62 times for 326 yards for a 5.3 yards per carry average in a throwback to the Tom Osborne Nebraska teams that would grind their opponents to the ground on the strength of their rushing attack.
It wasn’t quite vintage Huskers tonight, but the 37-point outburst and mental toughness shown to overcome an early deficit, at the end of a year that saw Nebraska suffer one heartbreak after another, should give Nebraska fans reason for optimism that 2016 will be better.
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Rosen was 26 of 40 passing for 319 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions, one coming in the end zone on fourth down late in he fourth quarter as he heaved up a prayer, but it went unanswered as UCLA finished the year with an 8-5 record after beginning the year 4-0.