The 2007 PapaJohns.com Bowl was a

postseason The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

match between the

Southern Miss Golden Eagles The Southern Miss Golden Eagles and Lady Eagles (also known as Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles and Lady Eagles) are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), located in Hattiesburg, Miss ...

and the

Cincinnati Bearcats The Cincinnati Bearcats are the athletic teams that represent the University of Cincinnati. Though they will move to the Big 12 Conference (XII) the teams are currently a part of the American Athletic Conference (The American), which from 1979 ...

Legion Field Legion Field is an outdoor stadium in the southeastern United States in Birmingham, Alabama, primarily designed to be used as a venue for American football, but occasionally used for other large outdoor events. Opened in 1927, it is named in ho ...

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

. The University of Southern Mississippi represented

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

(which Cincinnati was once a member of) and the University of Cincinnati represented the

Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...

. The game resulted in a 31–21 Cincinnati victory, which did not cover their 11-point spread. The payout for both teams was $300,000, the lowest payout among all college football bowl games. This was the final game for

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

Jeff Bower, ending his 17-season tenure at Southern Miss. Bower was forced to resign after their disappointing season. Retrieved on 2008-14-04. After Bower's resignation, the selection of Southern Miss was notable as Bower's first game as head coach of the Golden Eagles was also at Legion Field, in the

All-American Bowl The All-American Bowl was an annual postseason college football bowl game played at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama from 1977 to 1990. The game was known as the Hall of Fame Classic from 1977 to 1985. In 1986, the National Football Foundatio ...

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

. Cincinnati quarterback

Ben Mauk Gary Benjamin Mauk (born January 4, 1985) is a former American football quarterback. He completed his college football career in 2007 Cincinnati Bearcats football team, 2007 for the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Cincinnati Bearcats, Bearcat ...

passed for four

touchdowns A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether Rush (gridiron football), running, Forward pass, passing, returning a Kickoff (gridiron football), kickoff or Punt (gridiron football), punt, or recovering a Turno ...

and 334 yards. Southern Miss quarterback

Jeremy Young John Henry Young (1934 – 9 April 2022), known professionally as Jeremy Young, was an English actor of Scottish descent. Young had numerous television credits, including ''Deadline Midnight'' (1960), ''Doctor Who'' (appearing as caveman Kal i ...

went 18-for-32 for 122 yards with two touchdowns and three

interceptions In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

. After being down 31-14 in the fourth, quarter

cut the lead by scoring a 5-yard touchdown pass to Chris Johnson, but Southern Miss' rally fell short after they couldn't recover an onside kick or convert a fourth-and-1 play on its next possession. Only 35,258 people attended the game, less than half of

's capacity. Cincinnati distributed 8,352 tickets, a school record for bowl attendance, while Southern Mississippi distributed around 5,000 tickets. Cincinnati's win brought their record to 10-3, their first 10-win season since 1951. With the loss Southern Miss' record ended at 7-5.

Game summary

Final statistics

Yahoo Sports
/ref> ^* Completions/Attempts ^a Carries ^b Long play ^c Receptions

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2007 Papajohns.Com Bowl PapaJohns.com Bowl Birmingham Bowl Southern Miss Golden Eagles football bowl games Cincinnati Bearcats football bowl games PapaJohns.com Bowl 2007 in sports in Alabama