Colt-to-Rivers bedevils ASU

Brennan passes for 559 yards -- 308 of them to the Saint Louis alum

If it is the task of underclassmen to send seniors out as winners of bowl games, call it mission accomplished for Hawaii -- especially juniors Colt Brennan and Jason Rivers.

They were voted co-MVPs after breaking national records at the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl yesterday at Aloha Stadium. UH started slowly but dominated most of the second half to beat Arizona State, 41-24. The victory gave the Warriors an 11-3 mark and capped a season some (though maybe not members of the 1992 team who first won 11) will call UH's best.

Brennan threw five touchdown passes to finish with 58 for the year and broke the single-season record of 54 set by Houston's David Klingler in 1990. He passed for 559 yards and was intercepted once.

Rivers caught 14 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns. The yardage is a record for all Division I bowl games, as well as a school mark.

A gathering of 40,623 -- largest in the five-year history of the Hawaii Bowl -- watched as the Sun Devils fell to 7-6 in fired coach Dirk Koetter's last game.

Ryan Torain rushed for 160 yards and a touchdown to be named ASU's game MVP.

It is the fourth victory in five bowl games for Hawaii in June Jones' eight seasons as coach.

"Everybody did their part," Jones said. "I'm so proud of the kids for doing it the way they did it."

It might have been the final college game for Brennan, a junior who finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Brennan will announce his plans after receiving feedback from the NFL advisory board on what round he might be drafted.

"I'm going to come back, probably," Brennan said. "There'll have to be a huge deal I can't refuse."

As for his favorite target yesterday, well, maybe they need to change the name of this game to the Jason Rivers Hawaii Bowl.

In three Hawaii bowls, Rivers has 32 receptions for 599 yards and six touchdowns.

"When the stage gets big, he gets big," Jones said.

The old record for receiving yardage in a bowl game was 299 by Fresno State's Rodney Wright in the 2001 Silicon Valley Classic. The previous UH mark was 285 by Ashley Lelie against Air Force, also in 2001. Also, the 14 catches tied the school single-game mark shared by Chad Owens and Davone Bess.

"Where's June hiding these receivers? No one was talking about him," Sun Devils coach Dirk Koetter said of Rivers. "(No.) 84's as good a receiver as we've seen."

The kind of performance Rivers turned in yesterday begs the question of whether he would consider turning pro early. He said he'll stick around for his senior season.

"It's always on my mind, but you know, I want that (WAC championship) ring on my finger," said Rivers said. "I wanted to leave as a champion."

The Warriors didn't look like contenders for anything other than a sad Christmas early on. Arizona State led 10-3 at halftime, holding the nation's most productive offense to no first-half touchdowns for the first time since the season-opening game at Alabama.

The Sun Devils came out controlling the ball and the clock, allowing UH just 28 offensive plays in the first half. One of them was an interception of Brennan by safety Josh Barrett. ASU recycled the turnover into the only touchdown of the first half, a 37-yard pass from Rudy Carpenter to Brandon Smith.

The defense, led by Solomon Elimimian's eight tackles, kept the Warriors in the game.

"I really wasn't worried," Jones said. "It was us more than them. We knew once we got ahead it was going to change what they do."

And Jones took some advice from Rivers.

"There were some things their corner was doing that we knew we could take advantage of," Jones said. "Jason pointed out some things, and I said, 'He's right, let's do this.' "

After Rivers got open a couple of times down the sideline early in the game, the Sun Devils played him a little softer.

"And we knew if we could get them to play him outside, the slant was there," Jones said.

Rivers caught 10 passes for 188 yards in the first three quarters alone. A lot of those yards were gained by aggressively going after defenders, sometimes initiating contact.

"I think it's important to let the defense know we're here to play, even though we're receivers, and we're not backing down to anyone," Rivers said.

"Jason is the most aggressive receiver I've ever been around. I love the way he goes after defensive backs," Brennan said.

His 38-yard touchdown reception from Brennan at 12:29 of the third quarter allowed the quarterback to tie Klingler's record and more importantly, tied the game at 10 and gave UH momentum on both sides of the ball. Also, the score was on a sideline pattern that, as Jones said, set up other routes for later in the game.

The first of two sacks by Warriors senior defensive end Melila Purcell forced a three and out, and UH got the ball back at midfield.

Brennan broke the record and Hawaii took the lead four plays later when he completed a 7-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Grice-Mullins.

UH increased the lead to 24-10 with another touchdown pass to Grice-Mullins, this one for 36 yards.

Grice-Mullins finished with eight catches for 111 yards.

After Dan Kelly's 43-yard field goal made it 27-10 early in the fourth quarter, Arizona State fought back.

Torain broke away for a 64-yard run, and then scored two plays later on a 12-yard effort.

The Sun Devils' Justin Tryon then recovered a Nate Ilaoa fumble at the UH 27. A 23-yard pass from Carpenter to Mike Jones put the ball at the Hawaii 4, and then Carpenter hit Jones on the next play for the touchdown. Following the extra point, the Warriors' lead was trimmed to 27-24.

Hawaii responded with a 72-yard scoring drive, capped by Brennan's 21-yard touchdown pass to Bess with 5:16 left.

Another key sack by Purcell forced ASU to punt with around 3 minutes left.

Brennan and Rivers then iced the game with a 79-yard touchdown as Rivers caught a short slant across the middle and outran the ASU secondary to the end zone.

"This receiving corps, with Colt, we really had something special together," Rivers said.

Now the question is if that "something special" will continue in 2007.

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