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Riley's gamble pays off for Oregon St in Sun Bowl

Dec 30, 2006 - 10:16 AM EL PASO, Texas (Ticker) -- Coach Mike Riley's gamble capped off a thrilling comeback.

Yvenson Bernard rushed for the two-point conversion after tight end Joe Newton caught a 14-yard touchdown pass with just 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter to lift 24th-ranked Oregon State to a 39-38 victory over Missouri in the second-highest scoring game in the 73-year history of the Sun Bowl.

Riley could have played it safe and gone for the game-tying extra point after the Beavers (10-4) rallied from a 38-24 fourth-quarter deficit. Instead, with some prodding from Bernard, Riley decided to go for the win.

"It (the decision to go for two) was done with some encouragement from Bernard," Riley admitted. "Like in a card game, we were all in. We put all our chips on the table."

Actually, Riley's decision was to go for the extra point, but that was before Missouri coach Gary Pinkel called a timeout to freeze kicker Alexis Serna.

Then Riley was persuaded to make the gutsy call and didn't reach into the playbook for anything fancy. On a simple running play which relied on the surge of the offensive linemen, Bernard took the handoff from Matt Moore and followed his blockers up the middle and barely lunged across the goal line.

"Yeh I wanted to go for it," Bernard said. "I definitely wanted to do it."

Bernard, who finished with 97 yards on 23 carries, started the comeback with a seven-yard touchdown catch with 6:02 left in the fourth quarter, pulling Oregon State within 38-31.

Moore passed for 356 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for another score for the Beavers, who have won three straight bowl games under Riley.

"It was a real special season for us to get to 10 wins," Moore said.

On the winning drive, Moore completed 5-of-7 passes for 55 yards after Sammie Stroughter returned a punt 38 yards.

Tony Temple rushed for a career-high 194 yards and two touchdowns and Chase Daniel passed for 330 yards and two scores for Missouri (8-5).

"I had a feeling they were going to go or two," Daniel said. "It's bowl season, so what do you have to lose?"

The teams combined for 1,018 yards - 561 for the Tigers and 457 for Oregon State.

Fans were calling for Riley to be fired after the Beavers got off to a 2-3 start. But they stunned Southern California, 33-31, to end the Trojans' 27-game Pac-10 winning streak and closed the season with eight wins in their last nine games. The last three victories came by a combined total of six points.

"This really was a typical Beaver game," Riley said. "We showed our resiliency at the end and pulled out a close one. We had close wins in our games against Oregon (30-28) and Hawaii (35-32) and we did it again today with a great comeback."

Each team scored on its first possession. Missouri went 80 yards in 10 plays, capped by a seven-yard scoring run by Temple 3:30 into the game.

Oregon State responded with a 13-play, 80-yard drive which ended with Stroughter making a leaping 13-yard catch in the end zone with 7:07 left in the first quarter.

The Beavers took a 14-7 lead on a one-yard run by Moore with 38 seconds remaining in the first quarter.

Jeff Wolfert kicked a 30-yard field goal 3:39 into the second quarter and Daniel connected with freshman Danario Alexander on a 74-yard scoring play with 8:43 left in the quarter to give Missouri a 17-14 lead.

"We did a lot of good things but we just let it get away in the end," Pinkel said.

Pinkel gambled with an onside kick to start the second half, but Oregon State recovered. Four plays later, Moore hit Newton with an 11-yard touchdown 1:34 into the third quarter to put the Beavers ahead, 21-17.

Pinkel called for a gadget play and it worked when tight end Chase Coffman caught a lateral from Daniel and then lofted a 29-yard touchdown pass to Tommie Saunders with 11:14 left in the third quarter.

A 65-yard scoring run by Temple increased the Tigers' lead to 31-21 with 5:58 remaining in the third quarter.

Serna kicked a 29-yard field goal 1:54 into the third quarter, but just 58 seconds later Daniel hit Coffman with an 18-yard touchdown pass to make it 38-24.