This post was updated Dec. 30 at 4:26 p.m.

EL PASO, Texas — A towel draped over the head of a sulking Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

What once looked like the afternoon in which the redshirt senior quarterback would earn his first bowl win and become the Bruins’ all-time leading passer had taken a turn for the worse.

Fourteen yards separated Thompson-Robinson and history. One quarter stood between UCLA and its first bowl win in eight years.

Neither would come to fruition, however, as No. 18 UCLA football (9-4, 6-3 Pac-12) gave up 20 unanswered points to Pittsburgh (9-4, 5-3 ACC) in the second half and a go-ahead field goal with four seconds remaining to cough up a chance at a Sun Bowl victory in El Paso on Friday in a 37-35 defeat.

After leading for nearly the entire game, the Bruins entered the fourth quarter clinging to just a seven-point advantage. And on the first play from scrimmage of the quarter, Thompson-Robinson fired his third interception of the contest.

Pitt bounced right back with a touchdown to knot up the score, but UCLA’s quarterback couldn’t do the same. An injury left Thompson-Robinson on the sidelines as the Bruins’ lead began to slip away.

“That’s my boy, so it sucked to see him go down,” said senior offensive lineman Jon Gaines II.

A pair of special teams miscues gave Pitt an opportunity to tack on two more field goals and take a 34-28 lead, leaving the Bruins and redshirt sophomore quarterback Ethan Garbers a little more than four minutes to engineer a go-ahead touchdown drive.

On his second try, Garbers did just that, as freshman running back T.J. Harden punched in an eight-yard score to put UCLA back on top.

“We felt like it was going to be a back-and-forth game, so we felt like when we scored there with less than a minute left, hopefully we did enough,” said coach Chip Kelly.

The 34 seconds left on the clock when Harden crossed the goal line proved too many, however. Three straight completions set Pitt up for a 47-yard field goal that split the uprights and shattered the Bruins’ hearts.

In the waning moments, Thompson-Robinson walked to the locker room with the help of a trainer as he waved goodbye to the fans in the stands.

“He’s just such a warrior, and if he couldn’t go, then you know he gave everything,” Kelly said. “He’s a special player and will go down in Bruin history as one of the really tough, competitive guys that had an opportunity to put the uniform on.”

UCLA’s quarterback entered the afternoon needing 285 passing yards to vault into the top spot on the program’s career passing yardage leaderboard. And with senior running back Zach Charbonnet in street clothes on the sidelines despite making the trip to El Paso, the Bruins turned to the air early and often.

Thompson-Robinson dropped back to pass on five of UCLA’s first seven plays, with the penultimate pass of the drive a 51-yard strike down the seam to a streaking redshirt junior wide receiver Kam Brown. A quick flick to junior wide receiver Logan Loya on the next play put the Bruins into the end zone and onto the scoreboard, leapfrogging Pitt’s opening-drive field goal to take a 7-3 lead.

A near-flawless first half in his final game could only be slowed down by an interception that glanced off the fingertips of Loya and into the waiting arms of a Pitt defender, but Thompson-Robinson would tack on one more touchdown pass as UCLA entered the break with a 21-14 lead and its quarterback sitting just 22 yards short of history.

The opening drive of the second half looked to be the one for the record books, but instead, Thompson-Robinson found himself picked off once more, again off the hands of one of his own before ricocheting into a Panther’s arms.

The wait would continue as the Bruins went three-and-out before Pitt quarterback Nick Patti sailed a screen pass directly into the chest of redshirt freshman defensive back Jaylin Davies, who had nothing but green grass and paydirt ahead of him. The pick six put UCLA up 28-14 midway through the third quarter as the sun began to set on Pitt’s hopes of a Sun Bowl crown.

However, as the sun peeked out behind the clouds for a fleeting moment, the Panthers marched 75 yards down the field on 11 plays to put themselves back within a one-score deficit, kicking off the streak of 20 unanswered points that ultimately doomed the Bruins.

Thompson-Robinson would fall just short of the all-time passing record, and UCLA will have to wait another year for a chance at its first bowl win since 2014.

“I’m concerned with the players in that locker room and how they feel, especially the guys that aren’t coming back, because they’ve done an unbelievable job,” Kelly said. “I don’t think this final game can diminish the impact that those guys had.”