When Houston, Penn State settled for the 2012 TicketCity Bowl: Once you get selected for it, you

Editors note: This is part ofThe AthleticsTales from Bowl Season seriesexploring some of the best and quirkiest stories from past bowl games. The 2012 TicketCity Bowl is unlikely to live on in college football lore, but Penn State and Houston remember it for a multitude of reasons.

Editor’s note: This is part of The Athletic’s Tales from Bowl Season series exploring some of the best and quirkiest stories from past bowl games.

The 2012 TicketCity Bowl is unlikely to live on in college football lore, but Penn State and Houston remember it for a multitude of reasons.

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There was the locker room fight that led to the absence of Penn State’s starting quarterback. Houston’s missed opportunity to crash the Bowl Championship Series as it lost its head coach. An evening spent with a hypnotist in the lead-up to the game. A young Kliff Kingsbury calling plays for a record-setting quarterback airing it out enough to make even Mike Leach blush. A near fight between a Nittany Lions player and the school’s acting athletic director. Twitter trash talk.

“It was crazy,” former Houston receiver Justin Johnson said. “There was a bunch of stuff going on heading into that game.”

Neither team planned on spending Jan. 2, 2012, in Dallas. But the path each team took there is anything but forgettable.

The Nittany Lions went 9-3, but players knew their bowl status was in free fall through no fault of their own.

Many bowl games wanted nothing to do with Penn State amid the fallout from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. Joe Paterno was fired in November 2011, and the coaching staff, led by interim head coach Tom Bradley, continued working and recruiting while knowing the bowl would likely be their last game at Penn State. They were passed over by the likes of the Insight, Gator and Meineke Car Care bowls and send to the TicketCity Bowl, in its second year and played in the historic Cotton Bowl stadium.

“We didn’t feel like Houston was on our level,” said former Penn State offensive tackle Chima Okoli. “One of the best brands in college sports became untouchable. That’s why we’re here.”

Players were emotionally spent by the time the regular season ended, but also optimistic they wouldn’t be penalized because of a scandal they had nothing to do with. The bowl selection became just another gut punch.

“Everyone’s pissed off because it’s the TicketCity Bowl,” reserve quarterback Shane McGregor said. “But once you get selected for it, you kind of have to go.”

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A players-only meeting took place the night of the bowl announcement, with the team voting on whether or not to attend. While memories are a little foggy, those in the room recall at least 40 percent of the roster either not wanting to go or being indifferent. Others said it was almost a unanimous opt-out. Okoli, a senior, stood up and said he wanted to play. As he spoke to his peers, he was also trying to convince himself. Given all that had happened in the previous month, a football game felt insignificant, Okoli said.

The next day, acting athletic director Dave Joyner met with the team. Coaches who were in town, including Jay Paterno, stood outside the room and tried to bring Joyner up to speed on how players felt about the game. Tread lightly, they cautioned. Players were angry that countless bowls passed them over, and the last thing they wanted after a tumultuous month and a half was to be told what to do.

“(Joyner) said to me and the other coaches, ‘I don’t care what the vote is. I know how the vote is gonna end up. They’re going,’” Paterno recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t think you want to go in with that attitude.’”

Joyner walked into a hornet’s nest. He pulled up a chair and told the team it was going to Dallas, players said. The message was not well received, and tempers flared. Linebacker Gerald Hodges stood up and shared a few choice words.

“Gerald was like, ‘Dude, I’ve never even seen you before,’” Okoli recalled. “(It got) way too close. I’ll put it this way: That’s the closest Joyner had probably ever gotten to any of the student-athletes at Penn State ever.”

“I don’t think Joyner expected this was how it was going to be,” McGregor said. “It was not a good situation at all. … I think Devon Still was kind of the one who diffused it and told Joyner to like stand down. That at least didn’t let it escalate to blows.”

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Hodges was taken out of the room, but he wasn’t the only one angered. Eventually, coaches entered and players and Joyner talked through it.

“There was a general feeling that, you know, the honorable thing was going to be to play this out, because that’s what we do at Penn State,” Paterno said. “But there was definitely an undercurrent of some guys who did not want to go.”

The following day, Bradley called a handful of players into his office and pleaded with them to just get through the bowl trip without incident. He’d compromise: Players could spend Christmas at home and only one week at the bowl site. Penn State typically spent two weeks at the bowl site, one week in a nearby area before moving closer to the location of the game. The players, sympathetic to the position Bradley found himself in, warmed to the idea.

“The kids had gone through a lot,” Paterno said. “I really felt for them. … The way these guys carried themselves at the end of the 2011 season, I don’t think people say enough about it. … The administration made their decision to commit to the (bowl) money, so unfortunately there wasn’t much of a choice for these guys.”

The TicketCity Bowl wasn’t Houston’s preferred destination, either. The Cougars had planned on crashing the BCS.

The 2011 season unfolded as one of the best in school history. Led by quarterback Case Keenum, the Cougars started a school-record 12-0 and reached No. 6 in the BCS standings. A win against Southern Miss in the Conference USA championship game stood as the only step left to complete the dream.

But Houston coach Kevin Sumlin became a hot commodity thanks to his 35-16 record. Arizona State and UCLA were among the interested schools. As news of potential offers leaked, Texas A&M fired Mike Sherman two days before the Cougars’ title game. The Aggies did so hastily, calling to inform Sherman of his fate while he was in an A&M recruit’s driveway ahead of an in-home visit. The obvious No. 1 target: Sumlin, a former A&M assistant under R.C. Slocum.

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“My dad still talks about it,” Keenum said. “He’s still pissed at whoever let it out that Sumlin was leaving to go to A&M that week. It got all weird.”

It wasn’t the first time Keenum endured a coach leaving; he was a freshman when Art Briles left the Cougars for Baylor. The sixth-year senior knew it was part of the business. But not everyone felt the same.

“It affected me,” Houston receiver Tyron Carrier said, adding that it was on his mind the morning of the Southern Miss game. “These are guys you’re running through brick walls for. You kind of know what’s happening, and they say, ‘No, it’s not gonna happen.’ And the obvious keeps smacking you in the face.”

With the tension around Sumlin’s future as the backdrop, something seemed off that day in Robertson Stadium, and it showed.

Houston’s explosive offense — which set dozens of NCAA records that year — looked just a hair off here, an inch away there. Late in the first quarter, Carrier, the Cougars’ diminutive speedster who tied the NCAA kickoff return for touchdown record, found himself wide open in the “U-H” logo at midfield.

“We called 96 H Post,” Carrier recalled. “I gave (the defender) a move at the top, and he stumbled. I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, this is a touchdown.’ Case threw it, and it seemed like it took forever to fall.

“I caught it and let it go.”

A would-be 83-yard touchdown fell to the turf.

The uncharacteristically inefficient Cougars had two turnovers and gave up a rare blocked punt. Southern Miss rolled to 49 points and 21-point win, knocking Houston out of the BCS mix.

Fans jeered Sumlin on his way out of the stadium. Some Cougars were tearful. Keenum was angry. He remembers waiting outside the press area as Southern Miss did its victory interview session and watching it walk out.

“It’s still smarting,” Keenum said.

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A week after Houston’s devastating loss, Sumlin’s departure became official. Houston tabbed special teams coach Tony Levine as the interim coach to much fanfare inside the team. The players’ excitement to play for Levine, who later had the interim tag removed, helped raise spirits after the loss.

So did a little trash talk from Penn State. Carrier remembers some Nittany Lions talking down to the Cougars.

“We didn’t want to play that team. We didn’t feel like they’d be motivated,” Carrier said. “That didn’t really get us up until they went to Twitter and started talking mess about them playing a high school team.

“The worst thing you could do to that group, that year, was talk smack to us and say that we haven’t played anybody and that we’re not a good enough team. We needed that. They helped us more than they thought.”

Case Keenum and Houston finished a 13-1 season by routing Penn State. (Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

Before Penn State even made it to the bowl site, the offense lost starting quarterback Matt McGloin.

Coaches thought they diffused a tense moment in practice after McGloin threw an interception on a ball intended for wide receiver Curtis Drake. There was a miscommunication on the play, and two of the strongest personalities on the offense collided. Words were exchanged, but practice resumed.

The receiver approached the quarterback at his locker after practice. Within seconds, haymakers were thrown.

“It’s West Scranton vs. West Philadelphia, and they’re both never wrong,” McGregor said between laughs.

McGloin threw a punch. Drake avoided it and tackled McGloin into the lockers. McGloin swung again and slipped on the carpet, and the two crashed to the ground. The quarterback hit his head off the floor and had a seizure. Teammates were alarmed by the sight and started praying while an ambulance was called. Campus police arrived on the scene, as well, turning what was described as a scuffle into a serious problem.

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“Last thing I remember was waking up on a stretcher,” McGloin said days later as he met with reporters. “With everything that’s going on with this university right now, we don’t need another distraction.”

As McGloin headed to Mount Nittany Medical Center in an ambulance, Paterno, his quarterbacks coach, rode with him. Paterno used the time at the hospital to visit with his father, who was undergoing cancer treatment and also getting tended to for a broken hip.

“I’m thinking, like, could this month get any weirder?” Paterno said.

The bowl trip proved to be unusual, too.

Penn State players insist they’ve thought little about the on-field result, but many remember the trip in part because of one of the strangest pre-bowl activities of their careers. As Bolden spoke with reporters in the back of a large room at Gilley’s, the Texas-sized entertainment and dining complex, a handful of his teammates became the entertainment. They waited on stage to get hypnotized.

“The hypnotist was just bizarre,” Okoli said. “None of us were really into that, and also you have to be a willing participant — otherwise they’re just gonna sit and stare at you until it’s over and you can eat.”

So there they were, players hypnotized and rolling around on stage with inflatable alligators while teammates rolled their eyes. All part of the bowl experience.

“Everybody tries to do something that’s unique to that area,” Paterno said, “but the hypnotist, that was the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

While Penn State sorted through its issues, the Cougars prepared for a rout.

Once the fog lifted from its disappointment, Houston focused on beating a brand-name team with a Top 25 ranking. Kingsbury, then the Cougars’ offensive coordinator, surmised that the best approach called for throwing the ball every play. Carrier said it took the first five minutes of Penn State film review for the game plan to become obvious.

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“They had like three 6-4 guys on the D-line,” Carrier said. “They rotated another four in, and they all looked the same.”

Said Johnson: “Kliff came in there and said, “I don’t know if we’re gonna run it one time, but we’re gonna win. These guys can’t run with us.”

Houston used an Air Raid-inspired attack. Kingsbury succeeded Sumlin’s first UH offensive coordinator, Dana Holgorsen, after the 2009 season. Both had Texas Tech roots under Mike Leach. The breakneck tempo Houston used combined with a host of veteran skill position players — Keenum, Carrier, Johnson, receiver Patrick Edwards and running back Bryce Beall had been together for three or more years — made for one of the most prolific offenses in college football history.

Keenum could time a shotgun snap on a fly sweep well enough to simply tap the ball to a streaking Carrier, rather than catching it and pitching it to him.

“It was a special connection we had with those guys,” Keenum said. “There’s a lot of communication that happened and most of it was non-verbal, and I don’t mean just signals.”

Penn State felt it could bully Houston, but the Cougars were motivated to run around and past them. Bradley had handed off defensive coordinator duties weeks prior to linebackers coach Ron Vanderlinden and defensive line coach Larry Johnson after Penn State beat Ohio State. Pulled in too many directions as head coach, Bradley couldn’t also call the defense.

“There was a sense of urgency to prove that we were the team people thought we were,” Johnson, the Houston receiver, said. “We couldn’t wait to get out there and right the last wrong.”

When Kingsbury showed Keenum the game plan, it included “maybe one run,” Keenum said. “We literally were going to throw it 80 times.”

In the first quarter, Keenum remembers being shocked that Penn State had linebackers lined up over Carrier and Johnson, Houston’s slot receivers.

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“I don’t know if it was their arrogance or what it was, but we were able to run around these guys like it was nothing at times,” Keenum said.

Added Carrier: “Their secondary was too big and stiff to run with us.”

Edwards, on the game’s first drive, strolled by a Penn State defender for an easy 40-yard touchdown fewer than two minutes into the game. He finished with 228 receiving yards on 10 catches. Johnson had a school bowl record 12 catches for 148 yards.

“I couldn’t understand why a linebacker and a safety had eyes on me while Pat was running a post,” Carrier said. “It got to the point where I’m talking to the safety, ‘Why are you all on me?’ They’re like, ‘Shoot, that’s the game plan.’ They didn’t have the bodies to fit what we did.”

The Cougars came close to Kingsbury’s desired pass attempt total. Keenum threw 69 passes and was sacked twice. He ran it himself five other times. In 85 snaps, Keenum handed it off to a running back only eight times and completed 45 passes for 532 yards and three touchdowns. Meanwhile, starting in place of McGloin, Bolden completed 7 of 26 passes for 137 yards, with one touchdown and three interceptions. He transferred to LSU before the next season.

Houston won 30-14, outgaining the Nittany Lions 600 to 306.

By the time Penn State’s players returned to campus the following week, they quickly tried to move past the bowl. As rumors swirled about the future of the program and possible NCAA penalties, Bill O’Brien waited to meet his new team.

The whirlwind second half of the 2011 season gave way to an upcoming year that wouldn’t get much easier for players. Joe Paterno died a few weeks later. In July, the NCAA handed down sanctions, including scholarship reductions and a four-year bowl ban, that were meant to cripple the program.

The bowl ban ultimately lasted just two years as the NCAA reversed course, but for many in the program, the TicketCity Bowl marked their last postseason trip. If nothing else, Penn State fulfilled its bowl obligation.

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“You got to give them credit for that, because it would’ve been pretty easy for a lot of them to say the heck with it,” Paterno said.

For Houston, the win served as a bittersweet ending to a memorable season, complete with a 13-1 record and No. 18 ranking. Several of the Cougars’ 2011 records still stand. Keenum remains the NCAA’s all-time total offense, completions and touchdown passes leader. The Cougars’ 6,301 passing yards rank No. 1 all-time, and their average of 599.1 yards per game ranks fourth.

The one loss that kept the Cougars out of the BCS still stings. But their bowl finale proved fun, even though it came against a dysfunctional Penn State team in a half-empty Cotton Bowl stadium.

“There were so many other things going on,” Keenum said. “Just being able to throw all that out … it was like, ‘Man, screw it all. We’re gonna do what we do. It’s our last game, we’re gonna make it count.’

“We left it all out there, that’s for sure.”

(Top illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photo: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

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