Cowboys cap season with 30-27 overtime loss to Ohio in Arizona Bowl

Peasley, who had a strong first quarter before being bottled to 29 passing yards combined in the second and third quarters, connected with tight end Treyton Welch for 31 yards to set up Vaughn’s touchdown run.

With a three-point lead, the Cowboys’ defense was faced with the task of stopping an Ohio offense that totaled 385 yards on the night. UW held strong for the Bobcats’ final drive, but a 24-yard pass and a pass interference call on linebacker Easton Gibbs set Ohio up with a 55-yard field goal attempt to tie the game at 24-24.

Nathanial Vakos, the Bobcats’ kicker who ended the night 3-of-4 on field goals, missed the game-tying attempt with 8 seconds left on the clock. But UW coach Craig Bohl called a timeout just before the snap to give Vakos a second shot after the miss.

After the timeout, Vakos nailed the 55-yard kick to send the game to overtime tied 24-24.

“It wasn’t so much to freeze him,” Bohl said about the timeout. “We were going to give them one look and that wasn’t really going to be the look that we wanted to do. That was the reason I called it.

“... Yeah, I’ll probably mash my teeth a little bit, but I think we all recognize that those things come about.”

The Cowboys started overtime with the ball, but the offense stalled after four plays. Kicker John Hoyland knocked through his second field goal of the game to put UW up 27-24.

Settling for a field goal wound up costing the Cowboys another trophy for the collection. On Ohio’s fifth play in overtime, quarterback C.J. Harris connected with Tyler Foster for a game-winning 10-yard touchdown pass to give the Bobcats a thrilling 30-27 overtime win.

“Coming into this ball game, my assessment was that it was going to be a very, very close game,” Bohl said. “These were two very evenly matched teams and it was going to come down to a play or two and that certainty was the case.

“... We’re certainty disappointed. There’s a lot of guys in that locker room who are gut-wrenched right now and I feel for them. I feel for the guys who aren’t going to put on the pads another time. They poured everything they had into that game. The whole team did, and the coaches did, as well. Sometimes in life, you put everything out there and it doesn’t come back and the ledger doesn’t fall like you want it to.”

The Cowboys started the game with an explosive nine-play, 70-yard drive that was capped by Vaughn’s first career touchdown run from 17 yards out. Ohio responded with a 34-yard touchdown pass from Harris to Justin Holloway less than 2 minutes later and converted a two-point attempt to take an 8-7 lead midway through the first quarter.

The Cowboys were forced to punt on their next drive, but Ohio returner Sam Wiglusz muffed the return and Cole DeMarzo recovered it to set UW’s offense up at the Bobcats’ 17-yard line. On the next play, Peasley hit Welch for a 17-yard touchdown pass to put the Cowboys back in the lead at 14-8.

After an exciting first quarter of scoring, both team’s offenses slowed down in the second quarter. Vakos hit a 43-yard field goal to cut UW’s lead to 14-11 and Hoyland answered with a 53-yard field goal to extend the lead to 17-11 going into the halftime break.

After totaling just 68 yards of offense in the second quarter, UW gained just 16 yards in the third quarter to start the second half. The Cowboys were held scoreless in the third while the one scoring play, a 3-yard run by running back Sieh Bangura, put the Bobcats up 18-17 going into the final quarter.

“I don’t think we were doing a great job of sustaining our blocks and up front there was penetration,” Bohl said about the third quarter. “We missed a couple reads and we had a couple plays that would have been challenging catches, but didn’t make them. We were bogged down during that time.”

Vakos connected on a 45-yard field goal with 4:17 left to play to push the Bobcats’ lead to 21-17. Peasley and the Cowboys’ offense picked it up when they needed a touchdown, stringing together a 75-yard drive to take a 24-21 lead after Vaughn’s second touchdown run of the night.

Vakos’ game-tying field goal sent the Arizona Bowl to overtime for the third time in seven years. Harris’ walk-off touchdown pass to Foster gave Ohio a 10-4 record to end the season while the Cowboys’ fell to 7-6. The loss pushed UW’s losing streak to three to end the season.

“There’s a lot to work with in the future, and that will come,” Bohl said. “... Someone had to win and someone had to lose, and we lost.”