Sidelines
EVEN in the final minutes, even down by six and at their own 1-yard line, they knew they would win. They looked up, standing in the north end zone, their eyes on the clock and the scoreboard, and the yellow and orange of all those empty seats. The win didn’t
materialize for HawaiiThere was three minutes and change left, and Shawn Withy-Allen called the play, and the Hawaii huddle broke. And they knew they were going to go 99 yards, and win.
"As a kid you dream about it," Withy-Allen said.
Three times that happened. Two incomplete passes, and the third time they broke the huddle, Roxie Shelvin crashed through Hawaii's line. He hit Withy-Allen, and the ball popped out, and bounced out of the back of the end zone. Safety. And with that, the game was as good as done.
Withy-Allen got up, went to an official and pointed at the line. "It was out," he said. He said it again. "It was out." Still fighting, making sure it wouldn't be called a Tulane touchdown.
They still thought they could win.
"They wouldn't let me put my head down," he said of his teammates.
But no. Tulane 36, UH 28. Hawaii Bowl.
Hawaii should have won this game. Hawaii had Tulane down by two touchdowns. Hawaii had the better athletes, better team.
"I would say that we're physically better than that team," UH coach June Jones said.
In the first half, Hawaii's defense dominated. Travis LaBoy planted Tulane quarterback J.P. Losman before Tulane's left tackle could get out of his stance.
"I don't know exactly what happened," Losman said.
There was a lot of that, in the first half. But then the sacks -- eight of them -- added up. And there were fumbles, too. And Lynaris Elpheage got loose, tiptoeing a punt return down the sideline, making one final move to beat Mat McBriar for a score.
Then, Hawaii punted again, and Elpheage had a 56-yard return to set up another score.
And suddenly, in the second half, Tulane's Mewelde Moore was slicing through the UH front wall, running the clock, bleeding out a lead.
"Twenty-six (Moore) is a good running back," La'anui Correa said.
But it was more than that. It was more than what Tulane did, or who Hawaii was playing without.
"It was more just our inability to get it done," Jones said.
Yeah, Timmy Chang was injured again, and he might have made a few more small plays. But Withy-Allen and Justin Colbert combined for just as many big ones. And besides, it should never have come to that. Hawaii was still stronger, bigger, faster, better.
"We deserved to lose the game," Jones said.
In the second half, it was Tulane that had every answer, Tulane that made the plays, Tulane that played like a team that knew it would win.
"They didn't stop," Withy-Allen said. "They had a lot of heart in them. They just kept coming, kept coming."
Somehow, Jones said, the Wave found the "stuff inside of them that makes teams better than what they are."
Jones knows. His teams have done that.
And so even in the final minutes, in that huddle in their own end zone, Hawaii's players knew they would win.
They were wrong.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com