PHILADELPHIA – Anthony Johnson learned Friday night at the team hotel that his best friend since elementary school had been shot and killed.
On Saturday, the Buffalo senior wide receiver broke three tackles on his way to the end zone, scoring a last-minute touchdown to give the Bulls a 36-29 victory against Temple at Lincoln Financial Field.
"I was going to go home, but my family members told me, 'Don't come home. Just play through this game first,'" Johnson said. "Even though I had a heavy heart, I wanted to play for him and for my teammates, so I just stuck through it and I gave my all. Even though I was on and off, throwing up, I pushed through it."
Johnson finished with a game-high six catches and 76 yards, including his game-winning 29-yard reception from Tyree Jackson with 59 seconds to play, sending their teammates rushing toward them in celebration.
Last week's blowout victory against perennial FCS doormat Delaware State, in which Jackson rained six touchdowns in a little more than a half of play, was exactly what UB wanted in the season opener – to overpower an overmatched opponent.
But defeating Temple, and in this fashion, means more, because as much as the outing tested Johnson's mettle, this was a measuring stick game for the Bulls, who won a slugfest against an opponent from a supposedly superior conference, on the road, in an NFL stadium, to improve their record to 2-0 for the first time since moving up to the FBS level in 1999, having last opened a season with consecutive victories in 1983.
"Just watching him make that play was amazing," Jackson said about Johnson's go-ahead score. "He's the ideal teammate that you want to have. He's the guy that's always cheering for other people when other people are scoring, and he always has his head up, so for that to happen to him and for him to deal with that adversity that way. He didn't have to play. He didn't have to be out there for us today, but he did, and that just goes to show what kind of kid he is."
Jackson completed 26 of 45 passes for 275 yards, three touchdowns and an interception.
Redshirt freshman Kevin Marks rushed for 138 yards and two touchdowns.
And Buffalo's defense forced three turnovers while limiting Temple to 3 of 14 on third down.
Cam Lewis grabbed two interceptions on a day he wore the No. 41, which players are rotating each week to honor former teammate Solomon Jackson, who died in 2016.
And the Bulls sealed the victory when defensive end Chuck Harris recorded a sack and forced fumble, recovered by defensive tackle Chibueze Onwuka with 15 seconds to play.
"We knew we had to stay aggressive," UB coach Lance Leipold said. "If you saw what we were doing, going for it on fourth downs and things like that. We were going to be aggressive. We were going to stay aggressive. And we felt we were going to need to do that to have a chance to win today."
Johnson, who learned the previous night that his friend and high school teammate, De'mon Davis, 22, was found shot to death in Fort Mill, S.C, had the most resilient individual performance in a contest full of comebacks and momentum swings, as the teams traded scores on four consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter.
Jackson guided the Bulls to 24 second-half points, rallying UB after Temple captured a 14-12 lead early in the third quarter. The Owls quickly erased a 12-0 deficit by scoring on Frank Nutile's 39-yard bomb to Branden Mack as time expired in the first half, and on a 44-yard pass to Randle Jones on the first drive of the third quarter.
But UB was relentless.
Marks, who rushed for 138 yards and two touchdowns, scored from the 1-yard line to give the Bulls a 19-14 lead midway through the third. And UB answered Temple scores twice more, after the Owls knotted the score at 22-22 on a blocked punt and two-point conversion reminiscent of the Philadelphia Eagles' famed "Philly Special," and at 29-29 on Mack's second touchdown catch of the game, which came with less than 5 minutes to play.
Leipold marveled at his team's performance, and particularly Johnson's go-ahead score with less than a minute remaining.
"Unbelievable," Leipold said. "And then I don't know how much people are watching the guy throw up the whole third quarter on the sideline. That's why he's not on the field. And then for him even to go back out there and then to make a play like that with extra effort and everything else, with the tank empty, it really says a lot about him as an athlete and as a person."
