Garrett Gilbert was unable to lead another fourth quarter comeback as The University of Cincinati capitalized on a number of SMU mistakes on their way to a 28-25 victory Saturday.
Chase Hover missed a pair of field goals for the Mustangs.
A holding call took a touchdown off the board, there were two crucial drops that stopped two seperate Mustangs drives, and there were two awful punts (if you can call them punts).
The cherry on top of all the misfires, was the targeting penalty against SMU on their onside kick attempt.
Gilbert just finished leading SMU down the field to make it a three-point game with 3:27 left in the game, when the Mustangs elected to try to recover an onside kick.
What resulted was a Cincinnati recovery and a targeting penalty against SMU. The penalty results in the ejection of the guilty player, but before the ejection takes place the play is reviewed by officials.
Upon review, officials determined that there was no targeting on the play.
However, the 15-yard penalty stood because a penalty cannot be overturned.
As a result, Cincinnati took over well inside of SMU territory and iced the game.
Brendon Kay lead Cincinnati with 299 yards on 27 of 32 passes, with two touchdown and two interceptions.
Gilbert passed for 403 yards on 38 of 47 pass attempts and a pair of touchdowns against the fourth best defense in the nation.
It was Gilbert’s seventh 300-yard passing game of the season and his fourth straight.
He also recorded his fifth straight multi-touchdown game.
SMU receivers Darius Joseph (103), Keenan Holman (142) and Jeremy Johnson (102) combined for 347 marking the first time in program history that the team had three 100-yard receivers.
Hover made one of his three field goal attempts, missing from 48, 34 yards out but connecting from 24. He is now 14 of 17 on field goals this season.
First-year return man JaBryce Taylor was injured on a kickoff return in the second quarter and was carted off the field and taken to a hospital in an ambulance.
The Mustangs return to Ford Stadium this week and will take on the Connecticut Huskies at 2:00 p.m.
