DALLAS 鈥� Seth Henigan passed for 284 yards and three touchdowns 鈥� two of them to Eddie Lewis 鈥� and Jeyvon Ducker ran for two touchdowns to give Memphis a 38-10 win over Utah State in the First Responder Bowl on Tuesday.
Henigan鈥檚 touchdown passes were all thrown in the second quarter, when Memphis outscored Utah State 21-3. The Tigers outgained the Aggies in the period 179 yards to 39 and 137-16 in the air.
Ducker had a 1-yard plunge and a 48-yard sprint for scores, both in the fourth quarter.
Lewis caught scoring passes of 15 and 22 yards, and Caden Prieskorn caught a 3-yard touchdown pass with 24 seconds remaining in the half for Memphis. Chris Howard added a 26-yard field goal in the first quarter for the Tigers (7-6).
Bishop Davenport threw a 44-yard touchdown pass to Brian Cobbs for the Aggies (6-7) in relief of quarterback Cooper Legas, who left early in the third quarter with an apparent leg injury.
Connor Coles kicked a career-long 53-yard field goal for Utah State.
Henigan, a sophomore who played high school ball about 70 miles north of Dallas in Denton, Texas, was 20 for 29.
Camellia Bowl
Buffalo built a lead with Cole Snyder鈥檚 passing and Alex McNulty鈥檚 kicking. The Bulls then put the Camellia Bowl away with an unrelenting barrage of fourth-quarter runs by Tajay Ahmed for a 23-21 victory over Georgia Southern on Tuesday in Montgomery, Ala.
Snyder passed for 265 yards and Ahmed took over the final quarter with 14 carries.
鈥淭his was kind of a small episode of kind of who we鈥檝e been and what our season looked like," Buffalo coach Maurice Linguist said. 鈥淛ust tough yards, grind out play after play. And kind of throw a blanket over the scoreboard and just pound the rock, is what we say.鈥�
The Bulls (7-6) chewed up the clock with runs from Ahmed on 11 consecutive plays and one pile-pushing final first down. The former walk-on, who was awarded a scholarship in the spring, finished with 27 carries for 98 yards and a touchdown.
That last first down meant quarterback Kyle Vantrease and Georgia Southern (6-7) couldn't get the ball back for a final chance against Vantrease's former team, with whom he spent five years and started 26 games before transferring.
Birmingham Bowl
Holton Ahlers threw a Birmingham Bowl-record five touchdown passes and accounted for a game-record six TDs to help East Carolina beat Coastal Carolina 53-29 at Protective Stadium in Alabama.
Ahlers, selected the game MVP, threw for 300 yards on 26-of-38 passing, rushed for 37 yards and a touchdown and caught a pass for 14 yards for the Pirates (8-5).
Coastal Carolina quarterback Grayson McCall, the three-time Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year who entered the transfer portal this month, wasn鈥檛 as fortunate.
Presumably, McCall鈥檚 final play in a Coastal Carolina uniform came on a 9-yard touchdown run. He was hit while tumbling into the end zone and never returned to the game. Jarrett Guest replaced him in the first half and played most of the second half. McCall鈥檚 run gave Coastal Carolina (9-4) a 14-10 lead. By halftime, though, Chanticleers were in a 24-14 hole.