Western Kentucky won a wild one in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl with the Hilltoppers defeating Western Michigan in the First Responders Bowl on a last-second field goal from Cory Munson.
Here’s how it all went down at Nissan Stadium.
Things started out slow as the First Responders Bowl got underway. The lone score of the first quarter came on a 30-yard field goal from Thiago Kapps, as he put Western Michigan on top. Both teams sat under 100 total yards of offense as the 1st quarter came to an end. In fact, the Hilltoppers had just 19 yards of total offense.
However, in the 2nd quarter, Western Kentucky put together the best drive of the game early on. Ty Storey led the Hilltoppers on a 10-play, 93-yard drive that he culminated with a 17-yard pass to Jahcour Pearson. This made it 7-3 with 10:54 left in the half.
WKU added a field goal later in the 2nd quarter as they added to their lead. As the 2nd quarter started to close, it looked like the Hilltoppers would take a lead into the locker room at the half. However, Kareem Ali and the Broncos had other plans.
On a 2nd and 3 from the Broncos 14 yard lien, WKU’s Stoney was picked off by Ali, who took it 85 yards the other way for a pick-six. This tied things up at 10 with 59 seconds left and is where things would stand as the teams went into the locker room at the half.
In the 2nd half, the Broncos rode that momentum. After coming up with a quick defensive stand, Western Michigan went on a 10-play 90-yard scoring drive. The series was capped off on a 6 yard TD pass from Jon Wassink to DeShon Bussell.
Then in the fourth quarter, the Hilltoppers would again square things at 17, as Storey found Lucky Jackson for the score. The drive ate 6 minutes and 32 seconds off the clock.
Western Michigan’s ensuing possession was a clock chewer as well. The Broncos went 12 play 62-yard drive that was capped off on a 20 yard Kapps field goal. The drive took 5 minutes and 35 seconds off the clock, as the WMU went up 20-17.
The Hilltoppers followed suit on a field goal drive of their own as they tied things up at 20 with just 1:30 left to play. That’s when things got, interesting, r weird, depends on your choice of words.
Western Michigan drove the ball down to the WKU 30 yard line, which set up, what would have been about a 47-yard go-ahead field goal with 31 seconds left to play. Instead, the Broncos elected to go for it and were unsuccessful as Wassink threw an incomplete pass to a very crowded right sideline.
Shortly after that, WKU chucked up a hail-mary as time expired, and the ball was batted down. However, a flag on the play would come to reveal that the Broncos of Western Michigan had 12 men on the field.
This resulted in a 5-yard penalty and set up the Hilltoppers to run one untimed down from the WMU 34 yard line. In came Corey Munson, who drained a 52 yarder for Western Kentucky to capture the First Responders Bowl with a 23-20 final.
Written by Adrian Beecher
