Famous Toastery Bowl: Western Kentucky wins OT thriller over Old Dominion in Charlotte
It was a curiosity piece — a team from Virginia, a team from Kentucky, and a game originally scheduled for the Bahamas.
But Monday’s Famous Toastery Bowl on the Charlotte 49ers’ campus ended up having a local hero, after all.
Lucas Carneiro, who played high school ball at Community School of Davidson, kicked a 29-yard field goal in overtime and lifted Western Kentucky to an improbable 38-35 overtime victory over Old Dominion.
His kick came a couple hours after his team had fallen behind 28-0 and turned to a quarterback who threw only two passes all season.
“I’ve been a part of a lot of good wins, but this one will definitely go into the record books,” Western Kentucky coach Tyson Helton said.
So if you weren’t among the 5,632 spectators at Jerry Richardson Stadium or part of the national audience on ESPN, you missed a strange one.
Western Kentucky (8-5) had a quarterback who threw for 3,340 yards this season and an FBS-best 4,746 yards last fall. But that quarterback, Austin Reed, opted out of Monday’s game.
So Helton turned to his nephew, Turner Helton, to step in.
Helton fumbled away the ball on the Hilltoppers’ first series. On the next possession, he threw a pick-6.
So then Tyson Helton turned to Caden Velkamp, a freshman whose season-long passing statistics were 1-for-2 for 4 yards.
By the time Velkamp got his feet under him, Old Dominion (6-7) was up 28-0.
Velkamp, whose home is just a few miles from the Western Kentucky campus in Bowling Green, proceeded to do his best imitation of Reed or Bailey Zappe, or any other standout Hilltopper quarterback. He completed 40-of-52 passes for 383 yards and five touchdowns.
The last of those scores, a 15-yarder to K.D. Hutchinson, came with 19 seconds left and tied the game.
“All these guys, they believe in me,” Veltkamp said afterward. “They know if any of us ran out there, we’d be all right.”
What did he tell his teammates when he entered the game and the Hilltoppers were far behind?
“I told these guys, like, ‘We’re going to win the game — not a question,’ ” he said. “It took to the very last play to do it, but we did it.”
The Hilltoppers had 169 yards’ total offense through the first half but 302 yards in the second half.
“These guys around me, they played well,” Veltkamp said. “And you know, the defense just kept getting stops, giving us opportunities.”
Old Dominion did fine when the Hilltoppers were turning the ball over.
The Monarchs scored three times in the first 7½ minutes, on a short run, a short pass, and the pick-6. Their longest drive covered 81 yards and ended with a touchdown run by quarterback Grant Wilson. That made it 28-0 with 13:38 left in the half.
The Hilltoppers got on the scoreboard on a Veltkamp-to-Dalvin Smith touchdown pass, but their final drive of the half ended when Myers Park High’s Tahj Ra-El picked off a Veltkamp pass and returned it 40 yards. The Monarchs were unable to convert on that turnover and led 28-7 at intermission.
In the second half, the Hilltoppers gradually battled back into it.
Old Dominion had a chance to clinch it with about three minutes left, but a 47-yard field goal try by Ethan Sanchez was blocked.
That became a familiar refrain, as Old Dominion’s only overtime possession also ended with Western Kentucky blocking a field goal try.
The Hilltoppers took over, drove to the 12, and won it with Carneiro’s field goal.
Old Dominion coach Ricky Rahne said he didn’t think his team got complacent.
“We just couldn’t get into a rhythm after a while,” he said. “It felt like we were one play off, one yard off, one broken tackle off, one missed tackle, one missed assignment.”
Notes
▪ This Bahamas Bowl-turned-Famous-Toastery-Bowl game was moved to Charlotte because of stadium construction in Nassau. It is expected to return to the Bahamas next year.
▪ Western Kentucky is now 7-1 against Old Dominion. The two teams formerly were both members of Conference USA, but Old Dominion has moved to the Sun Belt Conference.
▪ The close game shouldn’t have been a surprise to Old Dominion followers. Eleven of the team’s 13 games this season were decided by a single score.
▪ This was Part 1 of Charlotte’s football bowl season. Part 2 is Dec. 27, when the Duke’s Mayo Bowl is played at Bank of America Stadium, between North Carolina and West Virginia.
Steve Lyttle on Twitter: @slyttle
