Willy Earns Spot In Senior Game

Bulls get great ratings and rank among nation's leaders in bowl tickets sold

Drew Willy

BUFFALO, NY – Some news and notes regarding Buffalo's football program upon the completion of the most successful season in UB's 10-year association with Division I-A football:

• Senior quarterback Drew Willy has been invited and has accepted an invitation to play in the Western Refining "Texas Versus the Nation" game in El Paso on Saturday, January 31st.

Willy will play for "The Nation" and return to El Paso where he spent part of his childhood. The game, in its third season, will be played at the Sun Bowl with kickoff at 11:00 am (EST) and televised on CBS College Sports Network. Last year, current Oakland Raider defensive end Trevor Scott became the first Buffalo player to participate in the game.

Speaking of Scott, the Potsdam, NY native was tied for the league lead among rookies with five quarterback sacks in his first season with the Raiders. Included in that figure was a pair of sacks against future Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre in a win over the New York Jets.

Trevor Scott (Courtesy of Oakland Raiders)

• Another former Bull who had a big rookie season was former center Jamey Richard. Richard started in seven games and saw action in 15 games with four starts and center and three at left guard. The Weston, CT native started his first two NFL games after being a seventh round draft pick and capped his tremendous rookie season by recovering a fumble for a touchdown in the regular season finale versus Tennessee. Richard was named to the All-Rookie team by Pro Football Weekly.

• The Bulls appearance in the International Bowl against Connecticut saw a huge ratings swing from 2008 to 2009. This year's game got a national rating of 2.12 (or just over two million homes) up 33% from last year's number of 1.59 between Rutgers and Ball State. Locally, the game got an 18.2 rating (70,400) in cable households according to Time-Warner statistics. It was the most watched cable show in four years, higher even than the Buffalo Bills Monday Night broadcasts on ESPN in 2007 and 2008.

• Buffalo's 10,500 tickets sold for the International Bowl ranked it second among all non-BCS programs in terms of tickets sold for bowl games. Only Navy, which sold 16,200 tickets to its game in Washington, DC (the Eagle Bank Bowl), sold more than Buffalo among non-BCS schools. Among schools that Buffalo outdrew at the ticket window were Arizona, North Carolina State, Kansas and Wake Forest.

• Ramon Guzman, who played for the Bulls through the 2006 season, was signed by the Montreal Alouettes. Guzman played the entire 2007 season with the Indianapolis Colts, where he recorded 16 tackles in 16 games played.