Florida Atlantic 39, Louisiana-Lafayette 32, OT

10/20/2007 9:43 PM

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) -Rusty Smith passed for 308 yards and four touchdown, including the one that let Florida Atlantic tie a back-and-forth game at the buzzer, and Charles Pierre scored from one yard in overtime as the Owls beat Louisiana-Lafayette 39-32 Saturday night.

Louisiana-Lafayette (1-7, 1-3 in the Sun Belt Conference) had tied the game at 25-25 with 7:47 left, then went ahead 32-25 on Michael Desormeaux's 32-yard touchdown run with 1:03 left.

But Smith, who finished 26-of-45, hit Cortez Gent with the scoring pass. FAU (4-3, 3-0) considered a two-point conversion, but after a timeout kicked the extra point to send the game into overtime.

The Cajuns got the ball to the 3-yard line after Pierre's touchdown but a sack, false start and incomplete pass ended the game.

Pierre ran for 93 yards, including the game-winning score.

Smith's touchdown passes went to four receivers: 12 yards to Jason Harmon, 30 yards to Chris Bonner, 1 yard to Willie Rose and the final pass to Gent. On the ground, he lost 18 yards.

Desormeaux led all rushers with 145 yards, including two touchdown, and completed 14 of 22 passes for 121 yards. Derrick Smith had a game-high seven receptions totaling 75 yards.