Mav Rally Edges Truman, 62-61
Nov 13, 2010 | General
Box Score
KIRKSVILLE, Mo. -- This time, it was different. After two heart-breaking losses in the closing seconds this season, the University of Nebraska at Omaha rallied in the closing minutes and finished off a 62-61 victory at Truman State with quarterback John Teigland's five-yard pass to tight end Mike Higgins with 30.4 seconds left. The Maverick defense then held the Bulldogs to one completion in six attempts to secure the win.
Teigland passed for 314 yards and five touchdowns, three of them to Austin Wells, and Levi Terrell ran for a career-high 226 yards and three scores as UNO rolled up 613 yards in total offense.
The Mavericks finished the year with an overall mark of 5-6 and a 5-4 MIAA record, while Truman State fell to 4-7 and 2-7. Last week, UNO lost with 16 seconds left to Missouri Western and in October, the Mavs dropped a game at Central Missouri with four seconds left.
Trailing 61-48 with 7:45 to play, the Mavericks drove 76 yards in nine plays to score on Levi Terrell's one-yard run with 4:27 left. Terrell, started the drive off with runs of 9 and 25 yards and Teigland kept it going with a 16-yard completion to Jonathan Patent to the one, setting up the score.
The Mavericks then stopped the Bulldogs on downs and UNO took over at its own 35 with 1:57 to play and no timeouts. Terrell ran for gains of 14 and 4 on the first two plays. After two incomplete passes, Teigland passed nine yards to Patent and 18 yards to Higgins on consecutive plays. Three incomplete passes followed, but the Mavs got a key pass interference call at the Truman five and Teigland took advantage by connecting with Higgins on the next play. Jacob Ramsay's eighth PAT kick of the day put UNO into the lead for good.
The Maverick defense held the Bulldogs to one completion in six attempts at midfield to end the game.
UNO rolled up a season-high 613 yards in total offense – the most in seven years – to the Bulldogs' 554. Teigland completed 20 of 31 passes for 314 yards and five touchdowns. Terrell scored three times, as did Wells, who caught five passes for 124 yards, including touchdown grabs of 44, 16 and 11 yards. Higgins had 103 yards on six catches.
UNO led at halftime 28-26, but Truman quickly erased that with a 96-yard kickoff return by Tremaine Millander and held the advantage the rest of the way. The teams combined for six third-quarter touchdowns and the Bulldogs carried a 54-41 lead into the fourth period.
Teigland connected with Austin Wells for an 11-yard scoring pass to slice the lead to 54-48, but Truman answered with a five-yard scoring pass from Phil Davis to Dallas Grier for a 61-48 lead with 7:45 to play.
The game was a wild contest almost from the beginning and featured several records or near records. It was the second-highest scoring game for combined points in UNO history. The 123 combined points was the most since a 128-0 loss to Creighton in 1913. It was the highest number of points ever given up by the Mavs in a winning effort.
The teams traded eight touchdowns in a back and forth first half, with UNO striking last with 64 seconds left on Teigland's 45-yard pass to Wells for a 28-26 lead. Teigland also had a 27-yard TD pass to Jonathan Patent for a 14-7 lead.
The Bulldogs scored first on Davis' two-yard run but the PAT kick failed. UNO then drove 79 yards to score on Justin Coleman's nine-yard reverse. The Bulldogs answered on Davis' 31-yard pass to Anthony Brown with 4:23 left in the first quarter. After UNO took the lead on the Patent score, Davis passed 47 yards to Dallas Grier for the touchdown and added a two-point conversion pass to Caleb Roberts for a 20-14 lead.
Notes...
The teams alternated scoring the 18 touchdowns in the game almost throughtout. The only breaks in the routine came when the Bulldogs scored the first two times in the second half and UNO scored the last two times in the game...It was the most points allowed by UNO in a win in school history, easily surpassing a 49-42 win over North Dakota State in 2002...the game last 3:10, finishing in the dark, and was played in temps that dove from a game-time 42 degrees into the mid-30s with a west wind from 15-20 miles per hour...There were five punts in the game, two by UNO, and none in the second half...eight straight possessions by the teams in the second half resulted in touchdowns, with the string broken when UNO held the Bulldogs on downs to set up the clinching score...it was the fourth time in school history that the Mavs have scored 62 points to win a game...Levi Terrell's 226 yards in the game gave him 960 for the season...Higgins finished his career seventh on the all-time receiving list.
