making the trip when the Big East was unable to supply a team

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Vintavious Cooper took over the Beef O Bradys Bowl in the fourth quarter in a performance reminiscent of a former East Carolina running back. Just dont bring up that comparison to Cooper. The senior rushed for a career-best 198 yards and scored two touchdowns, leading the Pirates to a 37-20 victory over Ohio on Monday. Cooper broke the Beef O Bradys Bowl record for yards rushing while becoming the first East Carolina player to win a MVP award in a bowl game since Tennessee Titans star Chris Johnson ran for 223 yards against Boise State in the 2007 Hawaii Bowl. "Its a great accomplishment and I have to really give it up to the guys up front and all the work they did. When I found out I was close to 100 yards after the first quarter I told them and they got excited about it," Cooper said. "I would never compare myself to Chris Johnson because I really admire CJ and I look up to CJ. Hes done so much for me. Im just happy my name is next to his in any way." The Pirates (10-3) grabbed the lead for good on the first of Coopers two touchdowns runs in the fourth quarter, a 31-yard burst with just under 10 minutes remaining. East Carolinas Shane Carden threw for 273 yards and one TD and also scored on a pass reception. "All season weve been about playing big in the fourth quarter and this was going to be a game that we needed to grind out and fight to win because Ohio is a real tough team thats well coached," Carden said. Cam Worthy caught an early 5-yard scoring pass from Carden, and then took a lateral and threw 14 yards back to Carden for a fourth-quarter TD that made it 31-20. Cooper put it well out of reach, finding an opening off left tackle and racing 22 yards for his second TD. Tyler Tettleton and Derrius Vick threw scoring passes for Ohio (7-6), which overcame an early two-touchdown deficit to lead 20-17 before Cooper put East Carolina back in front before an announced crowd of 20,053 at Tropicana Field. Breon Allen also scored on a 2-yard run for East Carolina, which won six of its final seven games to finish with the second-most victories in school history. Carden set the school record for single-season yards passing with a 13-yard throw to Isaiah Jones on the drive ended with Allens TD, making it 14-0. He completed 29 of 45 passes while boosting his season total to 4,139 yards, breaking Dominique Davis record total for the Pirates. Cooper ran for 90 yards in the opening quarter alone, becoming the third running back in East Carolina history to rush for 1,000 in consecutive seasons. Justin Hardy, meanwhile, had eight receptions for 59 yards, setting a school record for yards receiving in a season. He finished with nine catches, giving him 114 receptions for 1,284 yards. Ohio battled back after a slow start. Tettleton and Vick each threw a touchdown pass in a five-minute span to make it 14-all early in the second quarter. Tettleton got the Bobcats going with a 26-yard completion to Daz Patterson on a flea flicker, and then found Patterson for a 17-yard TD on the following play. Vick and Donte Foster combined for an 80-yard score on Ohios next offensive play for the longest scoring pass in Beef O Bradys Bowl history. "Theyre a very, very physical football team on the defensive side, and very strong. Generally youre not going to traditionally line up and just run the ball right at them and feel like youre going to be successful," Ohio coach Frank Solich said. "We had to come up with ways that we felt we could continue to make plays and then hopefully have our fair share of big plays." Foster finished with six catches for 160 yards, earning most valuable player honours for Ohio. Tettleton was 21 of 40 for 228 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions. East Carolina rebounded from a triple-overtime loss to Tulane in October to win five of its final six regular-season games. Ohio stumbled in November losses to Buffalo, Bowling Green and Kent State before finishing with a 51-23 rout of Massachusetts that helped the Bobcats secure the trip to St. Petersburg. Ohio accepted the bid to the Beef O Bradys bowl after the American Athletic Conference was unable to fulfil its bowl commitments. Ball State lost to Central Florida in last years game, making the trip when the Big East was unable to supply a team. In denying Ohio a third straight bowl victory under Solich, East Carolina stopped a four-game losing streak in bowl games, a skid that began after Johnson led the Pirates to the win in the Hawaii Bowl. "A win would have made this a whole lot better," Foster said. "It would have made it very tremendous, but I felt like our guys played their hearts out." China Jerseys Cheap . You can watch all the action on TSN2 beginning at 7pm et/4pm pt. 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Cheap Jerseys From China . -- Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Sidney Rice tweeted an apparent goodbye after a report about his pending release.As a fun NHL Draft exercise, I decided to go through each NHL team and re-configure their rosters, only allowing teams to include players that were drafted by the team. In order to keep the roster numbers up, those that were undrafted free agents were included with the teams for which they played their first NHL games. Take it easy, agents. This isnt about removing trades or free agency -- those are some of my favourite parts of the game too -- but its about how teams identify and secure talent and which teams have done these things more effectively. As you can see, by looking through these hypoethetical depth charts, there are teams that have provided a disproportionate number of the players throughout the league. Certainly, some teams have had and used more draft picks than other teams, so thats part of the reason why they bring so much more talent into the league, but theres probably a lesson to be gleaned from that as well. Take the defence picks of the Montreal Canadiens and Nashville Predators, for example. The Canadiens could, theoretically, have a defence that includes Ryan McDonagh, Francois Beauchemin, Mark Streit, Stephane Robidas and Ron Hainsey in addition to the guys they kept -- P.K. Subban, Andrei Markov, Alexei Emelin (could have included Francis Bouillon and Mike Komisarek, too). Nashville has done very well on the blueline, drafting Shea Weber, Ryan Suter, Dan Hamhuis, Roman Josi, Seth Jones, Cody Franson, Kevin Klein and Ryan Ellis (as well as Mattias Ekholm and signing Victor Bartley). On the other hand, there are teams that have had a hard time bringing in defencemen, like the Philadelphia Flyers, who have preferred (or been forced) to acquire their defencemen through other means. Dennis Seidenberg and Joni Pitkanen are the two best active NHL defencemen that the Flyers have drafted and Pitkanen missed all of last season due to injury while Seidenberg missed half the year. Of course, the Flyers have had brought in (and subsequently let go) some serious talent up front, including Patrick Sharp, Justin Williams, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, among others, but their hypoethetical forward depth chart is impressive. Sometimes, circumstances have made it that a team doesnt need to draft at a position. Think of the Boston Bruins goaltending situation recently, carried by Tuukka Rask (acquired in trade) and, before him, Tim Thomas (a Quebec Nordiques draft pick!), so -- at least prior to drafting Malcolm Subban in the first round -- the Bruins havent brought in a lot of blue-chippers in net. By contrast, the Toronto Maple Leafs have had Rask, James Reimer and Ben Scrivens, or the Washington Capitals, who have had Semyon Varlamov, Braden Holtby and Michal Neuvirth through their system. A few quick obserrvations: - Some lean resuls in Columbus, where they barely have an NHL centre aside from Ryan Johansen and Derick Brassard.dddddddddddd - Tons of depth with Detroit, particularly after making call-ups this year. Joakim Andersson and Luke Glendening, who played regularly for the Wings this year, didnt crack the five-deep depth chart. - Crazy depth in Ottawa too, where so many forwards -- Marian Hossa, Martin Havlat, Daniel Alfredsson, Antoine Vermette, Brooks Laich, Jakob Silfverberg -- have moved on to other teams. - A few other rules of this "what if?" game: I allowed players that were drafted twice to be used by both organizations, so look out for Jarret Stoll playing both sides in the Battle of Alberta! - The Edmonton Oilers come by their defensive woes honestly. Theyve drafted four active NHL defencemen, including Martin Marincin and Oskar Klefbom, rookies they called up last season. - Using the Atlanta Thrashers and Winnipeg Jets franchise doesnt yield much up front, especially with Ilya Kovalchuk gone to Russia. Bryan Little, Evander Kane, Mark Scheifele, then who was the fourth-best forward in 2013-2014 that was drafted by this franchise? Patrick Dwyer? Dany Heatley? The story is better on defence and in net. Using only players that played in the NHL in the 2013-2014 season, I came up with rosters (Maple Leafs example below) that you can see by clicking here. TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS LW C RW Alexander Steen Nazem Kadri Brad Boyes Jiri Tlusty Tyler Bozak Nikolai Kulemin Viktor Stalberg Matt Stajan Jimmy Hayes Jerry DAmigo John Mitchell Matt Frattin Josh Leivo Spencer Abbott Shawn Thornton D D G Carl Gunnarsson Anton Stralman Tuukka Rask Morgan Rielly Luke Schenn James Reimer Carlo Colaiacovo Jay Harrison Ben Scrivens Jean-Philippe Cote Mike Kostka Jonas Gustavsson Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. ' ' '