FAU Beats Rice 51-49 as Easton Messer Scores Five Touchdowns

Gael Ochoa touched the ball 12 times on the ground and scored four touchdowns of more than 50 yards. Easton Messer scored five touchdowns three different ways. Somewhere in the middle of all that, a blocked punt in the second quarter turned out to be the most important play of the afternoon.

FAU survived Rice 51-49 on Saturday at Flagler Credit Union Stadium in Boca Raton, a homecoming shootout that was not settled until Rice freshman Tommy Bauchiero's 55-yard field goal attempt fell short with 45 seconds left. The two points from that second-quarter safety were the margin.

FAU improved to 5-2 and 2-1 in the American, and the Owls stayed perfect at home at 4-0. Rice fell to 1-7 and 0-4 in league play, its seventh straight loss, after one of the strangest losing efforts of the college football season.

Rice came out sprinting

Rice did not bother with a feeling-out period. Ochoa, making his first start in place of the injured Jacurri Brown, broke a 55-yard touchdown run at 13:33 of the first quarter. At 6:54, he did it again, this time from 52 yards out, and a crowd of 14,212 that showed up for a noon homecoming kickoff was looking at a 14-0 deficit.

FAU's offense finally answered with 42 seconds left in the first quarter. Caden Veltkamp found Branden Hoch for a 30-yard touchdown, the first of Hoch's career, and the Owls were within 14-7.

The turning point: two points nobody noticed at the time

At 13:24 of the second quarter, Derrick Rogers Jr., a senior defensive back, got a hand on a Rice punt. The block resulted in a safety, and it made the score 14-9. In a game that finished with 100 points on the board, a safety barely registers in the moment. By the end of the day, it was the difference.

From there, FAU took over for a stretch. Messer ran in from 2 yards out at 9:30 to give the Owls their first lead at 16-14, and Veltkamp hit him with a 1-yard touchdown pass at 5:19 to make it 23-14. Ochoa answered less than a minute later with a 74-yard touchdown run, his third of the half, and FAU went into the locker room up 23-21. Rice cornerback Kyren Condoll also picked off Veltkamp before the break.

A third quarter that never stopped

The teams combined for 42 points in the period, 21 apiece.

Messer opened it with a 5-yard touchdown run at 12:35 for a 30-21 lead. Max Mosey answered with a 41-yard touchdown run 46 seconds later. Then, on third-and-11, Veltkamp found Messer for a 68-yard touchdown at 11:05, and it was 37-28. Rice kept coming. D'Andre Hardeman scored from a yard out at 6:40 to make it 37-35, and Veltkamp ran in a 1-yard touchdown of his own at 1:59 for a 44-35 lead. Forty-seven seconds later, Ochoa went 69 yards for his fourth rushing touchdown, and the Owls' lead was down to 44-42 going to the fourth.

Easton Messer did everything

With 3:37 left in the game and the score still 44-42, Messer fielded a Rice punt and went 82 yards for the touchdown. It was the longest punt return in program history and his second punt return touchdown of the season, and it pushed FAU's lead to 51-42.

That gave Messer five touchdowns: two rushing, two receiving and one on special teams. The five scores tied the FAU single-game record, which he now shares with Devin Singletary. He finished with 12 catches for 162 yards, three carries for 18 yards and 262 all-purpose yards. According to ESPN Insights, he is the only FBS player in the last 20 seasons with two rushing touchdowns, two receiving touchdowns and a punt return touchdown in the same game.

Messer was honest about how it felt, saying it felt like one of the worst games he has played personally and one of the best at the same time. He also explained why he wants the ball in as many spots as possible. "The more you can do, especially at a school like this, it sets you up with more looks to play in the league (NFL)," Messer said.

FAU coach Zach Kittley has seen enough of him to know what he has. "He's such a selfless football player," Kittley said. Veltkamp went further. "He works harder than anybody I've ever been around," the quarterback said.

Gael Ochoa's historic afternoon

The loss will not erase what Ochoa did. He ran 12 times for 259 yards, and all four of his touchdowns came on runs of 52 yards or longer: 55, 52, 74 and 69. ESPN Insights noted that he is the first FBS player with four rushing touchdowns of 50 or more yards in a game since at least 2004. According to the AP, he finished 6 yards short of Rice's single-game rushing record.

After Messer's punt return, Ochoa threw a 71-yard touchdown pass to Braylen Walker at 2:51 to cut the lead to 51-49, and suddenly Rice had a real chance to steal it.

The final stand

Rice got one more chance. A third-down pass fell incomplete, and Rice sent Bauchiero out for a 55-yard try with 45 seconds left. His career long was 45 yards. The kick came up short, and FAU held on.

"At the end of the day, we had to find a way to get the stop," Kittley said.

The numbers that tell the story

Rice outgained FAU 608 to 461, and the run game did almost all of the damage. Rice rushed for 499 yards. Ochoa had 259 of them, Tyvonn Byars added 93 on 16 carries, and Mosey chipped in 84 on just seven carries. On defense, Koa Akui finished with eight tackles and a sack.

FAU went the other way, throwing for most of its yards and rushing for just 122. Veltkamp completed 29 of 37 passes for 339 yards with three touchdowns and one interception, plus his rushing score. "I have to be smart with the football there," Veltkamp said. Leonard Farrow ran 17 times for 86 yards, and Kelby Valsin caught seven passes for 78 yards. Hoch finished with two catches for 38 yards and his first touchdown, and Kittley sounded like a coach who thinks there are many more coming. "He's going to be a 75- to 80-catch guy in a year or two," he said.

FAU's game recap (opens in a new tab) and official box score (opens in a new tab) have the rest.

What it means

For FAU, this was a bounce-back win after a 56-24 loss at Army a week earlier, and it kept the Owls in the American race behind league leaders UTSA and North Texas, both 3-0 in conference play at the time. A short week followed. Next on the schedule was a Thursday trip to North Texas on Oct. 29, then a home game against UTSA on Nov. 5.

For Rice, the record says 1-7, but rushing for nearly 500 yards with a first-time starter says plenty about that locker room. A seventh straight loss stings more when it comes down to one kick.

The last word

Kittley did not pretend it was a clean afternoon. He pointed instead to how his team stuck together. "At the end of the day, they battled for each other, no matter what it looked like," he said.

That about covers it. FAU gave up 608 yards and four long touchdown runs to a quarterback making his first start, and still walked off the field with a win because one senior blocked a punt in the second quarter and one receiver refused to let the game end any other way.

Sources: FAU Athletics recap and box score, The Associated Press, CBS Sports, ESPN, The Palm Beach Post, University Press, Houston Chronicle, The League Winners and ClutchPoints. More college football coverage on Undrafted.