NEW ORLEANS — Whether Terrance Broadway was throwing, running or throwing on the run, he gave East Carolina fits and justified Louisiana-Lafayette Coach Mark Hudspeth’s decision to let his sophomore quarterback finish the season as his starter.
Broadway passed for 316 yards and ran for 108, helping Louisiana-Lafayette repeat as winners of the New Orleans Bowl with a 43-34 victory against East Carolina on Saturday in front of a record crowd of 48,828 at the Superdome.
The performance capped a 2012 campaign which opened with Broadway backing up senior Blaine Gautier, who broke a bone in his throwing hand in late September.
“Terrance comes in and just has a phenomenal season,” Hudspeth said, describing the difficult decision not to give Gautier, the New Orleans Bowl MVP a year ago, his job back when he was healthy again late in the season. “We really had hit our stride and the best thing about Blaine is he understood.”
Broadway had to sit out last season after transferring from Houston, and saw this year’s New Orleans Bowl as his first real chance to add some kind of championship to his name after coming up short as a high school standout in Baton Rouge.
“My main goal was to get our team a big win in this bowl game and just to get that monkey off my back that I didn’t have a ring from high school and last year,” Broadway said. “I was very focused on that.”
Alonzo Harris rushed for 120 yards, including touchdowns of 6 and 68 yards for the Ragin’ Cajuns (9-4), who briefly squandered a threetouchdown lead before moving back in front for good on Broadway’s 14-yard scoring pass to Javone Lawson late in the third quarter.
“Nothing fazes our team,” said Broadway, who also ran for a 12-yard score. “Everybody on our team responds to adversity well. So when they came back on us and made a game out of it, our team is still upbeat and saying we’re going to win this game.”
And they did, with Brett Baer adding his second and third field goals in the fourth quarter to seal the victory.
Shane Carden passed for 278 yards and two touchdowns for East Carolina (8-5) but was intercepted in Ragin’ Cajuns territory by Jemarlous Moten in the fourth quarter as East Carolina drove for a potential tying or go-ahead score.
“They did a good job of changing, I guess, the coverage throughout the game,” Carden said of Louisiana-Lafayette. “But I think our offense could execute a lot better. It was nothing really they were doing. It was a lot of us just not executing routine plays.”
LAS VEGAS BOWL
Boise wins on FG
LAS VEGAS — The previous two times Boise State played in the Las Vegas Bowl, there were other places the Broncos wanted to be. Not so on Saturday, when the smallest player on the team came up big in a 28-26 victory over Washington.
After two consecutive blowouts in the Las Vegas Bowl, the Broncos had to work hard for a victory sealed by a 27-yard field goal by 5-5 Michael Frisina with 1:16 left. It left them feeling good about a game and a season when, unlike the last two years, there was hardly any talk about Boise State being in a BCS game.
“The most satisfying thing about this season was each week you’d see us get just a little bit better,” Boise State Coach Chris Petersen said. “These guys, they don’t go through the motions. They have a chip on their shoulder.”
The victory capped another strong year for the No. 20 Broncos (11-2), who had to overcome a 205-yard rushing game by Bishop Sankey against their normally stingy defense. Sankey also had 74 yards receiving, giving him 279 of Washington’s 447 yards from scrimmage.
But it was Frisina who came up with the biggest game of his career in his final game. He kicked three field goals, including the first game-winner he could recall.
“It’s every kicker’s dream to win a big game with a field goal,” Frisina said. “For this one to come on the last game of my career, you couldn’t ask for anything more.’
Washington (7-6) had taken the lead for the first time on a 38-yard field goal by Travis Coons with 4:09 left when Boise State got a big kickoff return by freshman Shane Williams-Rhodes to the Washington 42. Joe Southwick guided the team to the 12 before Frisina hit the winning kick.
“I was just focused on what I had to do,” Frisina said. “I’m there as the insurance guy, I guess you’d say.”
Boise State sealed the victory when Jeremy Ioane intercepted Keith Price’s pass as the Huskies neared midfield.
“To their credit they found a way to win the game in the end,” Washington Coach Steve Sarkisian said. “Our inability to finish is pretty blaring.”
Sports, Pages 34 on 12/23/2012