Toledo secured its first bowl victory since 2015 as the Rockets held off a late Liberty rally for a 21-19 victory in the Boca Raton Bowl on Tuesday at FAU Stadium.
The Rockets’ bowl victory capped off a solid 2022 campaign in which Toledo (9-5) also won the Mid-American Conference Championship.
Here are a few numbers that defined Toledo’s Boca Raton Bowl victory:
40:04: Toledo completely dominated the time of possession, controlling the ball more than twice as much as Liberty (19:56). Of the Rockets’ 10 offensive possessions, six consisted of at least eight plays. A 13-play, 75-yard drive that chewed up 6:15 off the clock to start the second half resulted in a 4-yard Dequan Finn touchdown pass to Lenny Kuhl, and a 16-play, 80-yard drive that lasted seven minutes was capped off by Finn’s 1-yard TD run with 10:35 left.
10-17: How did Toledo sustain such long drives? By completing more than half of its third-down conversions. The Rockets converted 10 of 17 third-down conversions, including 8 of 10 in the second half.
1-3: Special teams played a significant role for both teams, especially with rain falling off and on throughout the contest, but the kicking game proved costly for Liberty. Nick Brown missed a 32-yard field goal late in the third quarter after Liberty recovered a Rockets’ fumble on the Toledo 10. A bad snap also led to a missed PAT from Brown after Liberty scored with 7:24 left to make it a one-possession game.
15: Toledo was flagged just five times, but three of them were 15-yard pass interference penalties that helped Liberty score two of its three touchdowns. On the Flames’ second drive, Shedro Louis ran in a 9-yard touchdown run on the ensuing play following the Rockets’ first pass interference penalty, and quarterback Kaidon Salter found Treon Sibley for a 29-yard score midway through the fourth a few plays after Toledo’s final penalty.
253: Toledo held Liberty, which averages 400 yards of offense per game, to just 253 on Tuesday. A big chunk of that came when wide receiver C.J. Daniels caught a backward pass and fired the ball to a wide-open Bentley Hanshaw for a 67-yard touchdown with 3:40 left.
First Published December 21, 2022, 12:19 p.m.
