LIBERTY BOWL

Tulsa (11-3) sacks Iowa St.

— Tulsa capped one of its best seasons by relying on the two strengths that carried the Golden Hurricane all season: Running the ball and rushing the passer.

Trey Watts rushed for 149 yards, Alex Singleton ran for three scores and Tulsa avenged a season-opening loss to Iowa State with a 31-17 victory in the Liberty Bowl on Monday.

Tulsa’s defense recorded five sacks, forced three turnovers and held Iowa State scoreless over the final three quarters as the Golden Hurricane erased an early 10-point deficit.

“We never wavered, not for a second,” said Watts, selected as the game’s most valuable player.

The Golden Hurricane (11-3) posted the school’s second 11-victory season. Tulsa, which has the smallest enrollment of any NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision program, also finished 11-3 in 2008.

Iowa State (6-7) rallied to beat Tulsa 38-23 on Sept. 1 in Ames, Iowa, but the Golden Hurricane put together the comeback this time. Tulsa trailed 17-7 at the end of the first quarter.

“They’ve accomplished something nobody else at Tulsa has done,” Tulsa Coach Bill Blankenship said. “That’s a huge deal for us. We’ve had a team that won 11 before, so we tied that. We had a team that won the Liberty Bowl before and won Conference USA. We’ve done that. But we did it all in the same year.”

Both teams had changed quite a bit since that regular season opener.

Iowa State’s Steele Jantz, who threw two touchdown passes and ran for a third score in the season opener, lost his starting job to redshirt freshman Sam Richardson. The Cyclones’ leading rusher (Shontrelle Johnson) and top tackler (Jake Knott) from the Sept. 1 game missed the Liberty Bowl with injuries.

Sports, Pages 16 on 01/01/2013

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