PONTIAC, Mich. — The Marshall field goal with 43 seconds left ended the college football career of Troy Evans, so the UC linebacker pulled off his helmet and slid his mouth guard from his jaw. The finality of a Last Play is never lost on a player.

        “I was just trying to hold my head up high and walk off the field,” Evans said.

        Those were the last three points in Marshall's 25-14 win over Cincinnati, in the Motor City Bowl. And let's be honest:

        It was a lousy game, played in a lousy, nowhere town, in the middle of lousy winter. No offense, but there's not much you can do with Detroit in December. It's not as if there's a Tournament of Motors parade.

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DeMarco McCleskey soars over Marshall defenders for a TD. (AP photo) 600 | 800 | 1024

        It didn't help that the two teams combined for 25 penalties, or that the best placekicker in college never got to try a field goal. Jonathan Ruffin wore Lou Groza's No. 76, but his only chance to kick like Groza exploded, thanks to a comically bad snap.

        For all the rhetoric about bowl games being “rewards” for good seasons, they're mostly big paychecks to fund the football program. UC gets to keep $600,000 of the $750,000 payout from this game, and that is why it was played. Not as some sort of Christmas present for being 7-4.

        But there is a reward. It comes from finishing what you start. It comes from leaving things in better shape than you find them. Troy Evans made UC football better by his presence. That was his reward, obscured as it was by his team's performance Wednesday.

        Evans played at South Carolina for a year, transferred to UC, sat out the required season, then walked on when UC's scholarship allotment was used up. As a junior, he was second-team all-conference. This year, he led the team in tackles. He was a captain.

        UC football may make an eternal road-trip to respect. We don't follow this program so much as eulogize it. But there are players who don't believe the cynics, who just keep playing as hard as they can. Players like Troy Evans, who just might change all our minds about football in Clifton.

McCleskey (31) watches the game end. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        “No regrets,” he said a few minutes after UC's second bowl game in four years. (Also, its second in 48 years. But, who's counting?) “This was one of the better teams in UC history, and I was glad I was a part of it, and a captain of it. I always believed I could play, I could be a captain, I could lead. I believed UC could win, and that's what we did.”

        They didn't Wednesday. In the second half of the Motor City Bowl, the offense threw a rod. The defense couldn't handle Marshall QB Byron Leftwich's Donovan McNabb-like show. Marshall had 14 penalties and held the ball just 24 minutes. But after the Herd took a 15-14 lead early in the second half, UC never chased.

        As QB Deontey Kenner said, “We played a good half. The game's four quarters.”

        You have to finish what you start.

        “I looked around the locker room a couple minutes ago, and I wanted to cry,” Evans said. “The seniors on this team got very close. I think we established a tradition. Maybe if the young guys look at what we've done, how hard we worked, they'll push a little harder in the weight room and dig that one extra step in the spring.”

        Maybe. UC football seems always to be pushing the boulder uphill. It will take a few more Troy Evanses to level the field. Maybe they will come. Maybe.

        “It's harder to build than sustain,” UC athletic director Bob Goin had said before the game. “Once you build, you become attractive. People want to date you. When you're ugly, no one wants to date you. You see what I'm saying?”

        Yeah. We're always wondering if UC football is closer to Charlize Theron or Olive Oyl.

        We don't wonder about Troy Evans, though. About him, we know.

        “I'm proud I was part of something here,” he said. “We got it on the right track.”

        Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at (513) 768-8454.

UC loses Motor City Bowl Bad ending to good run Motor City Bowl Notebook UC-Marshall Statistics UC's Crawford breaks ankle UC's Jones still struggling to find niche Tonight's game: UNC-Wilmington at UC

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