U.H. Football Fight at Hawaii Bowl 2004

[cabanalane]

http://starbulletin.com/2004/01/15/news/story4.html

Can someone give me a summary of what happened? This is all I'm able to find from search function.

Hawaii won, so what was the deal?

[Mike_Lowery]

bunch of people were just irate about some personal fouls and chop blocks all game long, and the post-game handshakes turned out to be a cheapshot opportunity.

[Frankie's Market]

The Warriors won that year's Hawaii Bowl against Houston. It was a close, hard-fought game. But what should have been a showcase victory for Hawaii's program was almost completely overshadowed by that very ugly fight at the end. So instead of replays highlighting the thrilling see-saw game that ended in triple OT, all ESPN Sportscenter showed from that game was the fight, with players taking off their helmets and swinging them around like a weapon. What a shame!

And I think that brawl ended up harming Hawaii's reputation more than it did Houston's, since this came one year after another game-ending fracas at Aloha Stadium against Cincinnati.

[dick]

I was there in the middle of it -- http://starbulletin.com/2003/12/26/news/index3.html.

Actually, I was in the middle of both of Hawaii's infamous brawls (the other being the Cincinnati riot -- http://starbulletin.com/2002/11/24/sports/story1.html).

I was never able to figure out what really happened.

In both games tensions were running high, but at the end something went south and players snapped, and all hell broke loose.

Epic times, indeed.

These were among the few times as a press photog I was actually scared.