Florida International Wins 23-20 on a Field Goal as Time Expires
Devonte Lyons carried 24 times for 216 yards and two touchdowns, and Florida International still needed a field goal on the final play to put away Missouri State. Robert Czeremcha's 35-yarder at 0:00 made it 23-20. Florida International moves to 4-5 and Missouri State drops to 3-6.
For a while this looked easy. The first quarter had no scoring at all. Czeremcha kicked a 25-yarder with 2:00 left in the second, and Lyons ran 6 yards in the third and 17 yards early in the fourth to make it 17-6. Florida International finished with 276 rushing yards on 44 carries and 494 total yards, against 312 for Missouri State.
Then came the swing. Yousef Obeid kicked a 22-yard field goal to make it 17-9, and with 6:42 left Jashawn Cooper returned a fumble 51 yards for a touchdown. Henry Belin IV ran in the two-point try. That one play took a 17-9 game to 17-17. It was Florida International's only lost fumble, and it cost eight points.
The last five minutes were a tennis match. Czeremcha hit a 42-yarder with 1:55 left to make it 20-17, Obeid answered with a 30-yarder at 0:21 to make it 20-20 (the third tie of the day), and Czeremcha got the last word. Nobody led by more than a field goal over the closing stretch, and nobody led for good until the clock hit zero.
On the fantasy side, Lyons put up 38.8 Promethium points, more than two and a half times the best total anyone else in the game managed.