By Melissa Potes
EBC Florida Bureau
ORLANDO, FL (Eagle News) –- Since 2015, the AutoNation Cure Bowl is played annually on the third Saturday of December at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, raising $3.55 million for breast cancer research.
This year’s title would be a battle between state rivals the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns and the Tulane Green Wave. This would be the 29th meeting of these two teams with Tulane leading 22-6 in the series. Their last meeting in 2016 had Tulane winning in quadruple overtime.
Representing NCAA’s Division I Sun Belt Conference, the Ragin Cajuns were led first-year head coach, Billy Napier, and their dynamic duo running backs, Senior Trey Ragas and Junior Elijah Mitchell. This is the Ragin Cajuns first bowl appearance outside of Louisiana since the 1943 Oil Bowl. The Green Wave of the American Athletic Conference entered the postseason for the first time since 2016, led by running back junior
Darius Bradwell.
The game started off quickly with both teams scoring touchdowns on their opening possessions. As the first half progressed in what appeared to be an offensive
shoot-out, Tulane settled in and began to impose its will on the Ragin Cajuns. With the help of his offensive line, Bradwell had his way against the defense and Tulane would take a lead 24-10 at the half.
In the second half, the Ragin Cajuns made adjustments to creep back into the game, trailing Tulane by three points with 10:16 left to play. However, the Green Wave would answer back with a 13-play, 75-yard drive, that ate over six minutes off the clock. This drive was led with heavy doses of Bradwell, along with a momentum-shifting 4th and 7 conversion off a slant pass from quarterback Justin McMillan to tight end Charles Jones II for a 15-yard gain. A few plays later, Bradwell was able to score and Louisiana was never able to recover resulting in a final score of 41-24 in favor of Tulane.
Tulane Head coach Willie Fritz talked about the time of possession as being key to winning.
“We did a great job moving the football. We had the ball for twice as much as them,” said Fritz. “We had it for almost 41 minutes, they had the ball for 19 minutes. And when you do that normally, you’re gonna win pretty big if you don’t give up big plays, which for the most part we did. But offensively great job chewing it up and when we were on the sideline, defensively we were always playing pretty good defense.”
Bradwell would be named the game’s most valuable player and would go on to set new Cure Bowl records for rushing attempts and yards, leading Tulane with 35 rushing attempts, 150 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
While both Tulane and Louisiana left everything on the field, the biggest winners are the beneficiaries of the $3.55 million for breast cancer research.
Dr. Annette Khaled of the University of Central Florida College of Medicine called the donations a life-long commitment that is “bigger than game day.”
(Eagle News Service)
