2014 Bahamas Bowl
The 2014 Bahamas Bowl was a post-season American college football bowl game that was played December 24, 2014 at Thomas Robinson Stadium in Nassau in the Bahamas. The first edition of the Bahamas Bowl featured the Central Michigan Chippewas of the Mid-American Conference against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers of Conference USA. It began at 12:00 p.m. EST and aired on ESPN. It was one of the 2014–15 bowl games that concluded the 2014 FBS football season. Sponsored by the Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen fried chicken restaurant chain, the game was officially known as the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl.
| 2014 Popeyes Bahamas Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||
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| 1st Bahamas Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | December 24, 2014 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 2014 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Thomas Robinson Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Nassau, Bahamas | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Offensive: WKU QB Brandon Doughty Defensive: WKU DL Derik Overstreet | ||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | W. Kentucky by 3.5 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | John McDaid (American) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 13,667 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Payout | US$TBD | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ESPN/ESPN Radio | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Steve Levy, Lou Holtz, Mark May, & Laura Rutledge (ESPN) John Brickley & Pete Najarian (ESPN Radio) | ||||||||||||||||||
Western Kentucky beat Central Michigan, 49–48.
By the middle of the third quarter, the Chippewas had fallen behind the Hilltoppers by a score of 49–14, but they scored four unanswered touchdowns and so near the end of the fourth quarter were down by only seven points.
With one second remaining on the clock, Central Michigan had the ball on their own 25 yard line. The would-be final play started with a 45-yard Hail Mary pass from QB Cooper Rush to receiver Jesse Kroll. As Kroll was being tackled he lateraled the ball to teammate Deon Butler, who darted 20 yards before lateraling to Courtney Williams. With no room to run, Williams executed a quick third lateral pass to star receiver Titus Davis who ran the final 13 yards and dove towards the pylon, scoring a touchdown that would have tied the game with a kicked extra point and sent the game into overtime, but instead Central Michigan attempted a two-point conversion for the win, which was unsuccessful. Had the try succeeded, it would have marked the largest comeback in bowl history and tied the largest comeback in any FBS game. The play was nominated for an ESPY Award.
Chippewas quarterback Cooper Rush threw seven touchdown passes, setting a new NCAA bowl game record.
This was the first postseason bowl game to be played outside the United States since the 2010 International Bowl at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada.