SEC West quarterbacks help lead South to 27-16 Senior Bowl win
South Team quarterback Jake Coker, right, of Alabama, looks to avoid North Team linebacker Tyler Matakevich, of Temple, during the first half of the Senior Bowl on Saturday.
SEC West quarterbacks Dak Prescott, Jake Coker and Brandon Allen all led scoring drives to help lead the South to a 27-16 win over the North in Saturday’s Senior Bowl.
Arkansas’s Allen passed for a game-high 106 yards, including a couple of on-target deep balls. Mississippi State’s Prescott threw for 61 yards and a touchdown with both teams rotating their four quarterbacks after each quarter.
Both were 7-of-10 passing.
Baylor’s 6-foot-7 defensive end Shawn Oakman loomed large on the North defense. He racked up two first-half sacks and a forced fumble.
The game’s top quarterback prospect, North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz, had a mostly quiet first quarter. He completed 6 of 10 passes for 50 yards and the North didn’t score.
Ohio State quarterback-turned-receiver Braxton Miller also didn’t produce big plays on offense.
Miller, whose play got a lot of attention during the week in practice, had two catches for 8 yards and a 5-yard run while dropping a short pass. He did have a 31-yard kick return, one of the few roles he didn’t play at Ohio State.
Each quarter had a two-minute warning to give more quarterbacks a chance to run the offense in that situation.
The game’s rule switching possession after each quarter helped keep the North benefiting more from a huge special teams play.
USC’s Cody Kessler couldn’t get the North into the end zone before the third ended after a long blocked kick return and the South got the ball right back. Kessler couldn’t hit an open Miller in the end zone.
Wisconsin’s Joe Schobert blocked a field goal attempt and West Virginia’s K.J. Dillon returned it 73 yards in the final seconds of the quarter.
That came after Allen’s best drive.
He threw a pretty deep ball to Kansas State tight end Glenn Gronkowski — younger brother of New England Patriots star Rob — late in the third quarter. Then he fired another pass to Paul McRoberts, the first player from FCS Southeast Missouri to make the game.
McRoberts, who caught a 5-yard touchdown from Prescott, gained 46 receiving yards and returned a punt 27 yards.
Ohio State tight end Nick Vannett led North players with three catches for 58 yards.
For the South, North Carolina State’s Jacoby Brissett, a Florida transfer, got into the act with a touchdown drive in the fourth.
He and former Gators teammate Jeff Driskel — who played his final season at Louisiana Tech — matched up in the final quarter. Driskel’s wobbly throw on the final play went for a 29-yard touchdown to Aaron Burbridge of Michigan State.
Alabama’s Coker, a Mobile native who led the Crimson Tide’s national champion run in his lone season as starter, played the first quarter and helped set up a 25-yard touchdown scamper by TCU’s Aaron Green.
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