Sunday, December 9, 2001
[ UH WARRIOR FOOTBALL ]
What a long, strange trip it's been. UH seniors walk away
with big winBy Jason Kaneshiro
jkaneshiro@starbulletin.comFor the 21 seniors on the Hawaii football team -- many of whom took circuitous paths to arrive at yesterday's 72-45 win over Brigham Young -- the 2001 season finale provided a storybook ending to their college careers.
"It's perfect," said Hawaii quarterback Nick Rolovich, up to his eyes in leis following the traditional senior walk. "It's what these seniors deserve. It's what Coach (June) Jones deserves. This is what's supposed to happen."
What happened was a thorough drubbing of the school's longtime nemesis, and a fitting end to careers with more dips and turns than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
"In all these years, we've never ended with a win," center Brian Smith said, alluding to the fact that yesterday's senior walk was the first accompanied by a victory since 1993. "So this is really sweet. I kind of wish I would have redshirted and had one more year. But it feels good to end like this."
Hawaii dominated from the opening kickoff and the seniors played a huge roll in the triumph.
Rolovich passed for 543 yards and broke a school record with eight touchdown passes. Six of those scoring throws went to seniors Channon Harris, Craig Stutzmann and Tafiti Uso.
Defensively, safety Jacob Espiau led the Warriors with 13 tackles, while Robert Grant, who spent three seasons as a running back, recorded two sacks and forced a fumble.
"We whipped them physically and mentally," Stutzmann said. "Everything a UH fan wants for a BYU team is to demoralize them and that's what we did."
In a bizarre day at Aloha Stadium, by far the strangest moments belonged to Stutzmann. The St. Louis product caught four passes for 33 yards and a touchdown, which ended up being the last play of his UH career.
After hauling in the 5-yard pass from Rolovich with 3:57 left in the third quarter, Stutzmann inexplicably punted the ball in the end zone, drawing a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Unaware that two such penalties on the same play results in ejection from the game, he then joined his fellow receivers in jumping into the crowd and was flagged again, thus ending his tenure as a Warrior.
"I planned it," Stutzmann said of the punt. "That's something I wanted to do since I was a little kid. My freshman year of college, I wanted to do it on my first touchdown catch. But I didn't want to upset Coach Jones.
"But being a senior going out in my last game, they can't punish me. They can't make me run. And they actually laughed about it."
The idea about jumping into the arms of the fans came from fellow slotback Harris, who first did it as a sophomore in 1999.
Like many in the senior class, Harris saved one of his best performances for last. Harris, who dropped his share of passes in his career, latched on to 11 passes for 145 yards.
Harris said BYU's griping about being excluded from the Bowl Championship Series helped motivate the Warriors.
"They were disrespecting us all week," Harris said. "Talking about how they should be in a better bowl and counting this game as a win already."
Uso capped his college journey by contributing to the scoring binge. His touchdown receptions marked the first time he reached the end zone at Aloha Stadium since his high school days at Punahou.
"I've dreamed about it since the beginning of the season, having a big game against BYU," Uso said. "I just made the most of my opportunities.
"I was telling guys all week we were going to score. We have one of the best offenses in the nation. I knew we were going to put up points."
Uso went to Stanford out of high school, where he started in the Rose Bowl. He returned to Hawaii and after sitting out last year, he struggled with injuries this season. But being home to revel in yesterday's jubilation made up for the hardship along the way.
"This is my Rose Bowl, being at home," Uso said. "I loved the experience of being up there, but this one means even more to me.
"It was tough to hang in at times, but I knew eventually things would pay off."
Things certainly paid off for the Hawaii defense as well. The Warriors gave up 612 yards, but made up for it by causing seven turnovers.
Defensive end Joe Correia closed his UH career by recording eight tackles and a sack and recovering a fumble.
For Correia and safety Nate Jackson, the game brought their playing days full circle. The duo started their first game together against BYU as sophomores during Hawaii's 0-12 1998 season.
"It taught me how to take life as it comes," said Correia, who was granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA after being sidelined with a leg injury last year. "There's all kinds of obstacles, and you never know what can happen."
For Mike Iosua, the game capped five years at Manoa. He began as a tight end. He finished as a key link in the Warriors' defensive front.
"It's really something special, not only for our team, but for the whole state of Hawaii," Iosua said.
And in a game of outrageous statistics, the math major broke down the key stat of the game to its simplest terms.
"The biggest thing for us is that we won the game," Iosua said. "We held them to less points than we had."
But the biggest numbers of the day belonged to Rolovich.
In addition to surpassing the 500-yard mark for the third consecutive game, Rolovich set the school record for touchdown passes in a season with 33. He ended the season with 3,361 passing yards, second best in the UH record books.
It appeared Rolovich might end his college days with a cap and clipboard after being demoted from starter to backup early last season. But an injury to Tim Chang forced him to strap on his helmet again and he responded with one of the greatest seasons in school history.
He directed the Hawaii passing attack to near perfection yesterday, whether he was directing traffic to spring Ashley Lelie for a 61-yard connection or escaping pressure and shot-putting a pass to Stutzmann for a first down.
After the game, Rolovich was informed that he will have one more college game as he was invited to play in the Hula Bowl.
"I'm just real proud of him, how hard he's worked and how he persevered," said Rolovich's mother, Lori. "He met the challenge and stepped it up.
"It's worked out great. You couldn't ask for a better ending, that's for sure."
UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii
