Sidelines
Unfortunately, UH, UC
both still look badFrazier: Brawl 'unfortunate' EVERYBODY looks bad in this. That's the sad truth. Yes, now is the time for righteous indignation and calling the other team a bunch of punks. That's the natural thing to do. That's the easy thing to do.
It's time for somebody to do the hard thing.
This looks bad. It doesn't matter who you blame or how you spin it. And it looks worse now, as the two camps trade accusations and barbs via Internet updates of the AP wire. Nobody will be the first to say they're sorry. Nobody really thinks they did anything that wrong. Nobody will back down.
Everybody just says it was "unfortunate."
Yeah, I guess it was.
CINCINNATI LOOKS BAD in this, this bench-clearing brawl, this riot, this "unfortunate" situation. Cincinnati's athletic administration has lost all perspective, which tends to happen during mob violence. In its official press release on Saturday's 20-19 Hawaii win, UC took the initiative to say, as the University of Cincinnati, that, "Although the Bearcats were ready for the challenge presented by the Warriors, they were not able to overcome a lopsided effort by the Western Athletic Conference officiating crew."
This is not a huffed personal opinion grumbled around the office, but rather presented as gospel on the university letterhead.
There were some bad calls, but Cincinnati earned a few personal fouls, too. As for Hawaii's overwhelming advantage with the officials, "I did the same amount of yelling that I normally do," June Jones said.
Then there is UC athletic director Bob Goin, who has apparently decided to go inflammatory. On the same official university release he thunders that the game was "taken away from us," and UC was "cheated." Then he says that the problem was so many sideline boosters, who heaved abuse on his team for the entire game.
After the game, Hawaii called UC a bunch of sore losers.
What do you think?
HAWAII LOOKS BAD in this because it was their field that turned into Thunderdome, on their watch, because it was their crowd that went nuts.
Well, now we can't ever say anything about Fresno State again. Not us, we residents of the great state of Hawaii. As the soft drinks rained down from above, as the pepper spray shot through the night sky, we lost all rights to having any sense of moral superiority over our neighbors from California.
The constant heckling Goin was referring to?
"Let 'em go to Fresno State and see how they do," June Jones said of Cincinnati complaints about sideline heckling from fans.
Good argument. Fresno State is worse.
It wasn't his team's fault, Jones said. They were provoked, and they were, but they didn't seem to mind. Was Wayne Hunter asking the crowd for more noise with 12 seconds left, or was he motioning for someone to "come and get it"? What was former quarterback Jared Flint, in a T-shirt, doing on the front lines, taking the first punch, with his eligibility used up?
Cincinnati was complaining about abusive boosters, but it's more likely they meant the crowd behind their bench. And I've heard them. Some of those people ... they're not nice people.
That's "home-field advantage," Jones said.
Cincinnati says UH's home atmosphere was out of control.
What do you think?
WHEN ALL WAS quiet, and heads were cool, UC's Antwan Peek asked to address Hawaii's locker room. Instead Chad Owens came out, and the two shook hands, and embraced, and talked. That was hard, and that was big. And this should have been over then, but it isn't.
Instead, too many people are trying to take the easy way out. And today, this still hasn't gone away. Today, this is still "unfortunate."
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com