The hot seat bowl between Kevin Sumlin's Texas A&M Aggies and Jim Mora's UCLA Bruins was wild, crazy, silly and everything we love about college football.
UCLA came back from 34 points down in the third quarter to stun the Aggies in what was the second-largest comeback in college football history. The Bruins scored touchdowns on five straight drives of 66 yards or longer to end the game, and junior quarterback Josh Rosen completed the comeback with a fake spike touchdown toss that reminded of Dan Marino's heroics in 1994.
Here's how the comeback happened:
Josh Rosen settled in: The junior threw for a career-high 491 yards, four touchdowns and pulled out a touchdown pass for the ages when he tossed the game-winner on a fake spike to Jordan Lasley with under a minute to play.
This after he was rattled early by the Aggie defensive front, had no help from his teammates and was forced into a situation where everybody in the building knew what was coming.
He didn't care.
Rosen settled into his groove, utilized the middle of the field like a seasoned veteran and never panicked in a situation in which most mortals would pack it in. Down 44-10, he completed four of his six passes on a touchdown drive midway through the third quarter that resulted in a Soso Jamabo touchdown. That was all UCLA needed: one drive, one bit of confidence, one way to slow down the unrelenting Aggie pass rush that was bringing pressure from all over the field.
Texas A&M couldn't figure its quarterback situation out: Nick Starkel got the start under center for the Aggies and looked in control in his first action as a college player. The redshirt freshman from Argyle, Texas, completed 6-of-13 passes for 62 yards before leaving the game with a leg injury. No, that stat line isn't Heisman-worthy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was something to build on.
Starkel suffered a leg injury early in the third quarter and was carted off, replaced by true freshman Kellen Mond, who played sparingly in the first half in a change-of-pace role.
Mond has plenty of talent. A four-star, dual-threat weapon from IMG Academy in Florida, he is a perfect fit for Sumlin's system -- which thrived with dual-threat quarterback Johnny Manziel in 2012-13. But he's a true freshman and like all true freshmen -- especially those who start as backups -- there will be growing pains. Sunday was an example of that.
His 54 rushing yards gave reason for hope, but 3-for-17 passing through the air won't cut it. It allowed UCLA to focus on the zone read, make Texas A&M one-dimensional and prevent running backs Trayveon Williams and Keith Ford from having the same kind of success in the second half that they had in the first.
Jaelan Phillips' heroics (which will probably be overlooked): A sack by a team down 20 with just over 11 minutes to play doesn't seem like much normally, but Phillips' takedown of Mond with 11:10 to play was one of the biggest plays of the game.
The Aggies had found a little bit of a groove on the drive, crossing midfield to the Bruin 42-yard line and facing a 2nd-and-5 when it happened. The 10-yard loss forced Sumlin to play ultra-conservative and run on third down because the last thing he wanted was his true freshman quarterback to force a throw and make a potential game-changing mistake.
After all, the game was in hand at the time, right? RIGHT?!
Ninety-six yards to glory: Things got cooking on the ensuing drive, and that's when you knew A&M was in deep trouble. A 28-yard pass to Darren Andrews, 9 more to Caleb Wilson, 17 yards on the ground by Jamabo and and a 42-yard touchdown to Andrews -- that sailed through a Texas A&M defender's hands and should have been intercepted -- on four consecutive plays made it clear that the Bruins weren't dead.
