Cale Hellums and Godspower Nwawuihe accounted for five touchdowns as Army used a second-half surge to run past the UConn Huskies, 41-16, in the fourth annual Wasabi Fenway Bowl at frigid Fenway Park in Boston, Mass.
The Black Knights completed a winning season, at 7-6, by outscoring UConn (9-4) by a 27-6 margin over the final two quarters.
“It was just an incredible experience for our players,” said Army head coach Jeff Monken of playing the football game in the iconic Fenway Park, home of Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox.” It also ended the season on a high note after dropping a heartbreaking 17-16 game to arch-rival Navy in the regular season finale. “Our team did a great job of responding to what was a disappointing loss a couple of weeks ago,” said Monken, who improved to 6-1 in bowl games as head coach at an Army program that won its ninth bowl game in 12 appearances.
Hellums, a junior quarterback from Tomball, TX, sparked the second-half surge with touchdown runs of 1 and 6 yards, to finish with 18 rushing touchdowns for the season, second-most in program history behind Bryson Daily’s 32 set last season.
“I think Cale Hellums is a really tough football player,” Monken said. “I think his temperament, his personality, his style kind of fits who we are as a team. It’s tough and gritty. And that’s who he is.”
Monken said that Hellums, along with a couple other Army players, woke up with what he described as “the flu.”
“They didn’t look so hot,” Monken said. “But he wanted to play, they all wanted to play. He went out and led our football team.”
Hellums carried a game-high 15 times for 45 yards, finishing the season with 1,251 rushing yards and becoming just the eighth player in Army program history to reach the 1,200-yard mark. He carried 304 times this season, second-most in the nation and second-most all-time in a single season at Army. Daily set the record last year with 310 carries.
In addition, Hellums completed 7 of 8 passes for another 108 yards and a touchdown. His 40-yard scoring strike to Noah Short midway through the first quarter, tied the game 7-7.
Short caught all seven passes completed by Hellums and became the first player in Army program history to reach 1,000 career yards in both rushing (1,148) and receiving (1,008).
Equally impressive was the play of Nwawuihe, a freshman from Garland, TX. He electrified the 22,461 in attendance at Fenway Park with touchdown runs of 43 and 70 yards; the first of which ended the scoring for Army in the second quarter to give the Black Knights a 14-10 edge at halftime, and the other to open the scoring for Army in the second half to extend the lead to 20-10.
Nwawuihe said that though a bit treacherous he was able to navigate the 70-yard scoring dash on a nearly frozen turf.
“I was just trying to keep my feet,” Nwawuihe said. “The ground was pretty hard.”
The temperature was 23 degrees at kickoff, making it Army’s coldest postseason game in program history. Last year, the Black Knights faced Tulane in New Orleans, La., at the American Athletic Conference Championship Game in 29-degree weather, and took on SMU in the 2010 Armed Forces Bowl in 38-degree weather in Fort Worth, TX.
Nwawuihe led an Army ground attack, that marched for 368 yards, with a game-high 171 of his own on just 12 carries to become the first Army freshman to rush for over 100 yards and score two touchdowns in more than 30 years.
For his efforts, Nwawuihe was named the Fenway Bowl Offensive MVP, while senior team captain and linebacker Kalib Fortner – with six tackles a half sack – earned Defensive MVP.
UConn held an early 7-0 lead on a 12-yard touchdown run by Cam Edwards, who led the Huskies with 108 rushing yards on 11 carries. Huskies’ kicker Chris Freeman added a 49-yard field goal on the last play of the first half, and Ksaan Farrar tallied a fourth-quarter score on an 11-yard run and the two-point conversion try failed.
Army’s Carson Smith completed the scoring with a 6-yard touchdown run at the 4:25 mark of the fourth quarter. Black Knights kicker Dawson Jones connected on 5 of 6 PAT tries.
