Air Force Embarrasses Houston with a Dominant Performance on the Ground

The Mountain West continued it's perfect bowl season with a win from Air Force over Houston in the Brut Sun Bowl. Houston quarterback Case Keenum was intercepted six times by the Air Force secondary. The Houston defense had no way of containing the Air Force triple option. Air Force ran over Houston for 402 rushing yards and controlled the ball for 41 minutes en route to a 47-20 victory in Fort Worth.

Air Force has two running backs rush for over 100 yards.

Air Force ran the ball through Houston all day. Led by Jared Tew with 173 yards and two touchdowns and Asher Clark with 129 yards and two touchdowns. Quarterback Tim Jefferson kept the defense honest, throwing the ball 14 times and completing 10 passes for 161 yards. The offense was a major factor, as they held the ball for an amazing 41 of the 60 minutes of the game. With apologies to Howard Cosell, time of possession was huge in this game.

Keenum frustrated by Air Force and their 10th ranked defense.

When Case Keenum was on the field he was frustrated with an Air Force team that has risen to be ranked 10th in the nation. Air Force covered the Houston receivers tight and Keenum was frustrated by tipped passes in the first half that led to three of Air Force's six interceptions. Keenum also threw for a season low 222 yards. Keenum for the season threw for over 5000 yards and 43 touchdowns coming into the Sun Bowl. He also placed eighth in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

"Give Air Force all the credit and I'll take all the blame," Keenum said, in a statement at the post game press conference, before walking off without taking questions. "I'm going to learn from this. You know, I'm a winner and I'm a competitor. We're going to take this into the off season and we're going to use it as motivation. Look for the Cougars to do something special next year because there's a lot of guys in this locker room who have got a lot of determination." A calculated Tim Tebow moment? Keenum was humbled and it should be a good lesson learned that he and his receivers have work to do this off season.

Houston has glimmer of hope to start the third quarter.

Houston came out of the locker room to start the third quarter down 18 points. Tyron Carrier changed that in 15 seconds. Carrier returned the opening kickoff for 79 yards to narrow Air Force's lead to 11 points. The new found momentum was short lived though. On the kickoff following the touchdown, Air Force sophomore Jonathan Warzeka returned the kick 100 yards. According to ESPN the feat of back to back kickoff returns for touchdowns had never happened in a bowl game.

Keenum would lead Houston back down the field two minutes later and throw a 10 yard touchdown pass to Patrick Edwards but that would be Houston's last visit to the end zone.

The Mountain West is undefeated in bowl games so far this year.

The Mountain West is now 4-0 in bowl games with two wins over Pac 10 teams. Wyoming won the first bowl with an impressive double overtime win over Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl. BYU throttled Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl. Utah beat California in the Poinsettia Bowl. Next on tap will be TCU representing the Mountain West taking on WAC champ Boise State. Both teams are undefeated.

www.espn.go.com
ESPN TV