{"id":57023,"date":"2016-12-27T16:56:09","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T23:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=57023"},"modified":"2016-12-28T00:41:24","modified_gmt":"2016-12-28T07:41:24","slug":"holiday-bowl-minnesota-vs-washington-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=57023","title":{"rendered":"Gophers Hold off Cougars in Holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Golden Gopher defense shut down the Cougar offense in the Holiday Bowl!<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

(San Diego)- Rodney Smith scored on a nine-yard\u00a0run with 2:06 left in the contest to ice a 17-12 win for Minnesota over Washington State\u00a0in the 39th annual Holiday Bowl before 48,704 at Quallcomm Stadium Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erik Powell booted\u00a0a 26-yard field goal on Washington State’s first drive\u00a0to put the Cougars up 3-0 at the end of one.<\/p>\n

Emmit Carpenter kicked\u00a0a 43 yard field early in the second quarter\u00a0to get Minnesota even at three. Powell\u00a0kicked\u00a0his second of the night\u00a0– this one from\u00a041 yards out with 33 seconds left in the first half. The field goal was set up by\u00a0a Cougar fumble\u00a0recovery\u00a0in Minnesota territory. The Cougars took\u00a0a 6-3 lead into the break.<\/p>\n

\"Rodney<\/a>

Rodney Smith earns the Holiday Bowl Offensive MVP honor!<\/p><\/div>\n

The Gophers grabbed their\u00a0first\u00a0lead with\u00a03:23 left in the\u00a0third quarter when Mitch Leidner\u00a0hit Shannon Brooks on a 13-yard touchdown pass.\u00a0The pass was tipped by a Washington State defender\u00a0and into the hands of Brooks in the back of the end zone.<\/p>\n

Washington State took over\u00a0at its own 18 yard line with 4:40 left\u00a0after a Minnesota punt. On fourth and six Cougar quarterback Luke Falk was\u00a0picked off by\u00a0Adekunle Ayinde and Minnesota\u00a0took\u00a0possession at the Washington State 31 yard line with 3:05 remaining.<\/p>\n

From there\u00a0Smith capped a\u00a0four play, drive\u00a0with the\u00a0nine-yard touchdown run\u00a0with 2:06 left to\u00a0make it 17-6 Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Kyle Sweet got the Cougars close when he hauled\u00a0in an eight-yard TD strike from Falk\u00a0with 19 seconds left.\u00a0The two point conversion\u00a0pass attempt by Falk was\u00a0broken up and Minnesota held on to win it.<\/p>\n

Smith, who rushed for\u00a074 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries, was named the offensive MVP for the game.\u00a0Minnesota linebacker\u00a0Blake Cashman, who had 12 tackles and one sack,\u00a0was named defensive MVP.<\/p>\n

Leidner completed 11 of 20\u00a0for 129 yards and a touchdowns. Receiver Drew Wolitarsky\u00a0caught\u00a0five passes f0r 73 yards.<\/p>\n

For Washington State the running game was stifled all night. The Cougars gained just 39 yards overall on the ground. Gerard Wicks had five carries for 26 yards.\u00a0Falk finished\u00a030 of 51 for 264 yards and a touchdown.\u00a0He also had an interception.\u00a0Robert Lewis had six receptions for\u00a086 yards.<\/p>\n

Minnesota got the victory despite\u00a0playing without 10 players who were suspended\u00a0for a pending sexual assault investigation by the school.<\/p>\n

The Golden Gophers finished the season 9-4 overall\u00a0while the Cougars dropped to 8-5.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson (San Diego)- Rodney Smith scored on a nine-yard\u00a0run with 2:06 left in the contest to ice a 17-12 win for Minnesota over Washington State\u00a0in the 39th annual Holiday Bowl before 48,704 at Quallcomm Stadium Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12532,12528,4310,12533,12531,12527,12529,12526,2228,12530,8297],"class_list":["post-57023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-adekunle-ayinde","tag-erik-powell","tag-holiday-bowl","tag-kyle-sweet","tag-luke-falk","tag-minnestoa-football","tag-mitch-leidner","tag-quallcomm-stadium","tag-san-diego","tag-shannon-brooks","tag-washington-state-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57023"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57046,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57023\/revisions\/57046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}