ORLANDO, Fla. – With a stadium-shaking 75-yard scoring bomb in the first quarter and a two-touchdown fourth-quarter surge commanded by quarterback Tyler Huff, the Jacksonville State University football team eventually lost a thrilling 30-27 StaffDNA Cure Bowl football clash at Camping World Stadium on Friday in Orlando.
"It would have been easy to fold right there down by three scores at halftime," said Huff. "It would have been easy. I think we had three and out on the first drive on offense coming out."
Huff, a Ridgeview High School graduate in Orange Park, FL, threw for 363 yards in the game, a career game-high that included his 75-yard laser to receiver Cam Vaughn after Ohio had taken a 14-0 lead. Huff's 363 passing yards was also the bowl record breaking the record of Western Kentucky's Mike White in 2017 of 351 yards.
Huff's 75-yard TD to Vaughn was his sixth scoring pass of the year covering 50 yards or more.
For Huff, though, who was limited to just 12 yards on the ground, four sacks and an interception in the first quarter, the fourth quarter nearly made Huff's play legendary as Ohio had built a 27-7 lead at the half.
"We were not really running the ball," said Huff. "They were stunting and twisting a lot. They kind of messed up our zone scheme."
In the third, off a shanked Ohio punt, Huff took advantage of great field position to score on a seven-yard run that got the Gamecocks to 27-14.
"They had a bad punt, and then we had short field position that kind of swung the middle back to us," said Huff. "We scored that up pretty easily, so we got back into it after that."
With the Jax State offense, with Huff's rushing limited and top running back Tre Stewart not effective with just 27 yards for the game, Huff and Stewart moved quickly to two more Gamecock scores in the fourth to cut the Ohio lead to 30-27 with 3:35 left in the game. Huff orchestrated back-to-back 70-yard drives to get the scores; one 11 plays, the second 13 plays.
"We got a run in the second half," said Huff. "Whenever we got some confidence second half, we could see it was right there for us, but we just didn’t finish."
The Bobcats outgained Jax State 487-397.
The 2024 Gamecocks became the fourth team in the program's history to play 14 games in a season, joining the 1997, 1989, and 1992 squads. Jax State's 2015 team played 15 games while advancing to the FCS Championship Game.