Fresno State Athletics
Liberty Bowl Game Notes and Quotes
12/31/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 31, 2005
Memphis, Tenn. -
Liberty Bowl Game Notes:
Fresno State's opening drive was the longest of the year by number of plays from scrimmage, consisting of 15 plays before being stopped on fourth down.
Freshman Tight End Bear Pascoe caught his first pass since the Boise State game in the first drive...that catch was also just his second in the last 10 games.
Senior Wendell Mathis picked up the first points in the game, making a six-yard touchdown run with 1:00 remaining in the first quarter, his first touchdown since the fourth quarter of the USC game.
Receiver Paul Williams continued to be the big play receiver for the Bulldogs, making a 22-yard reception on first and 15 with his first catch of the game.
With each team completing two drives in the first quarter, the Bulldogs outgained Tulsa 113 yards to 17, and ran 21 plays to the Golden Hurricane's 8. The 17 first quarter yards were the fewest that Fresno State has allowed in 2005.
Senior Bryson Sumlin moved into fourth place among Fresno State career rushers with a nine yard pickup in the opening quarter, passing San Diego Chargers fullback Lorenzo Neal. (2,405 yards)
Sophomore tight end Jesus Tapia had a big day of firsts, making his first career start and catching his first career pass, a six yard reception over the middle to give Fresno State their opening first down.
Senior Bryson Sumlin scored his first touchdown since the San Jose State game on November 5 with a 25-yard run at 1:13 in the second quarter. That run gave Sumlin 57-yards to that point. Since the San Jose State game, Sumlin had recorded just 64 yards, a period of four games. He finished the day with 66 yards rushing, giving him 2,457 career rushing yards in his career, along with 269 yards receiving. Sumlin was a 1,000 yard rusher in 2004, and rushed for more than 500 in 2005.
Paul Pinegar had another efficient start, throwing his first incomplete pass with 8:05 remaining in the second quarter, after completing his first five. Pinegar finished the first half missing only twice, completing 10-12 passes for 87 yards.
Pinegar's ninth completion of the day, a four-yard completion to Joe Fernandez at 5:47 in the second quarter gave him 77 yards on the day, and exactly 10,000 yards for his career. Pinegar finished the day with 213 yards passing, giving him 10,136 in a four-year career as the Fresno State starting quarterback.
Pinegar becomes the second quarterback in Fresno State history to throw for more than 10,000 yards, joining 1983-1986 QB Kevin Sweeney who finished his Fresno State career with 10,808 yards, which was the NCAA Division I-A record at the time. Fresno State becomes the fourth school to have two quarterbacks with 10,000 career passing yards, joining Louisiana Tech (Luke McCown and Tim Rattay) USC (Carson Palmer and Matt Leinert) and Marshall (Byron Leftwith and Chad Pennington).
Receiver Paul Williams made his fourth tackle of the year, stopping a fake punt attempt by Tulsa at 9:14 in the third quarter. Williams dropped Tarrion Adams for a six yard loss, the first tackle for loss of the game for Fresno State and the first of Williams' career.
Pinegar's second rush of the game was a 15-yard effort, picking up a first down for the Bulldogs on fourth down and four in the middle of the third quarter.
Cornerback Marcus McCauley forced a fumble from Tulsa's Ashlan Davis at the 4:41 mark at the third quarter, his second forced fumble of the year. The ball was recovered by strong safety Josh Sherley, his first recovery of the season.
A fourth-quarter Joe Fernandez touchdown on a 21-yard reception from Paul Pinegar was the sixth touchdown catch for Fernandez in the last four games.
Senior Wendell Mathis broke the 100-yard rushing mark for the seventh time this season early in the fourth quarter after a six-yard run. That was also the ninth time that a Fresno State rusher reached 100-yards in a game, as Bryson Sumlin also reached that plateau on two occasions.
Mathis was selected as the Fresno State Offensive Player of the Game. Mathis led the Bulldogs with 125 rushing yards and one touchdown on 31 carries, and also caught one pass for 13 yards. The AutoZone Liberty Bowl marked the end of his Fresno State career, which ended with 2,272 yards and 27 touchdowns, and his 2005 season, where Mathis had 1,277 yards and 15 touchdowns.
Junior cornerback Marcus McCauley was named the Fresno State Defensive Player of the Game. McCauley had three solo tackles as well as forcing a fumble by Ashlan Davis. That was the Bulldogs' only takeaway of the game, and led to a touchdown run from Bryson Sumlin.
Pinegar finishes his Fresno State career as the Fresno State starting quarterback with a 32-13 record, keeping him in second place all time among Fresno State quarterbacks with a .711 winning percentage. Pinegar never finished a year with less than eight wins and piloted the team to four consecutive bowl appearances, become one of seven in NCAA history to win three.
The dual backs of Fresno State, Wendell Mathis and Bryson Sumlin, switched spots in 2004 and 2005, but for two consecutive years the team had one runner with over 1,000 yards on the season, and another with 500 on the season after Bryson Sumlin mover over 500 yards rushing in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl.
Senior wide receiver Jermaine Jamison finishes his Fresno State career with 124 catches for 1,541 yards in his career after adding one catch in the Liberty Bowl. His reception total ranks ninth among Fresno State receivers and his career yards rank 10th.
Senior Adam Jennings closed out an explosive career with two additional catches in the Liberty Bowl, giving him 89 receptions in four years. In addition, he returned two kickoffs for 58 yards, which will keep him with an average on the year of 29.0 yards per return, which going into the bowl season ranked No. 6 in the county.
The announced attendance at the 2005 AutoZone Liberty Bowl was 54,894, which is the second-largest attendance for any Fresno State bowl game. The most was 58,546 at the 1992 Freedom Bowl against USC, where Fresno State won 24-7.
Seventh Heaven Fresno State is one of 13 teams playing in its seventh consecutive bowl game this year. Here's a look at the others.
NCAA Teams Participating in Seven Consecutive Bowl Games: Fresno State Louisville Boston College Oklahoma Texas Georgia Miami (Fla.) Georgia Tech Florida Michigan Florida State Virginia Tech
WAC AttackHere's a break down of the WAC programs that have produced the most wins in a five-year period:Wins School Years52 Boise State (2001-05)52 BYU (1977-81)51 BYU (1982-86)50 Arizona State (1970-74)46 Fresno State (2001-05)46 Arizona State (1967-71)46 BYU (1987-91)
Nearly 500 members of the Memphis Police, Fire Fighters and Memphis Boys and Girls' Club children attended the 47th annual AutoZone Liberty Bowl thanks to the generosity of Bulldog fans who bought tickets through the Red Wave by Proxy program. Those Memphisonians wore red and cheered for the Bulldogs throughout the game.
Liberty Bowl Press Conference Quotes:
Head Coach Pat Hill: I'd like to thank everybody with the Liberty Bowl. It was a great invitation and we had a great experience for our players, for our families and for our fans.
It was sort of the story of our season down the stretch. We gave up two big plays with two turnovers at the end. Offensively we had a lot of opportunities down the stretch and during the entire game to make some plays, but you have to give credit to Tulsa. They did a good job and made the plays when they had to. That's the way football is. The team who makes the plays is going to win the game. They made the plays, and we were in a position to make the plays but didn't. We need to get back to work and learn how to finish games. These last four games we didn't finish games when we were in a position to win.
On the final drive: It was going good until Paul [Pinegar] got a little pressure, stepped up in the pocket and tried to get the under route. No. 55 [Nelson Coleman] made a heck of a play. Pressure is what got it started when he had to move back in the pocket. But we were moving the ball down the field well.
On the offense: The run game went well today and, except for the two turnovers, for the most part I thought the offensive consistency was good. We stalled a couple times in third and fourth downs with short yardage. We elected to go with the field goal the first time because we've been struggling with kicking.
Running Back Wendell Mathis: Right now I'm sort of at a loss for words. Like coach said, we just didn't make the plays we need to win. We had every opportunity to do it on offense and control the game, but we came up short.
As far as ending my college career, I'm just going to move on with life and wherever it takes me from here.
