By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

There was one Associated Press list the University of Hawai'i football game made this weekend and, unfortunately, it still wasn't the Top 25 poll.

It was the dishonor roll of situations turned ugly and great games tarnished.

Along with incidents in Pullman, Wash., and other places where rivalry week revelry went awry, the melee that followed Saturday night's UH-Cincinnati game is bringing the kind of notoriety nobody wants.

Under headlines like "Fight Between Hawai'i, Cincinnati Brings in Police" and "Fans Gone Wild: Celebrations Turned Ugly," a game that should have been memorable for how the Warriors won has, instead, become noteworthy for the fracas and charges that have followed.

Instead of Chris Brown's interception or Thero Mitchell's two touchdown runs, the "highlights" have resembled Mike Tyson press conference clips.

In a 9-2 season in which the Warriors have had so much else to point to, like leading the NCAA in passing, Saturday's rumble on the turf brought a black eye UH doesn't need or fully deserve.

Not since Pacific and UH punched it out almost 27 years ago to the day in Aloha Stadium's inaugural season, has there been anything like the helmet-swinging, punches-flying, debris-sailing, pepper-sprayed conclusion to Saturday night's game. And, hopefully there won't be again.

It has become difficult enough for UH to fill non-conference openings on its schedule without a visiting athletic director proclaiming, "I feel as if this game was taken from us by the officials and our kids were cheated out of a victory," as Cincinnati's Bob Goin said.

At 2,500 miles from its nearest Division I-A opponents and many more miles separating it from the major media centers, it has been tough enough for UH to gain acknowledgement of its successes, as the failure to crack the AP poll of sportswriters and sportscasters underlines, without having its victories derided.

It would not be happening if not for a combustible situation where there was enough blame to go around: the officiating crew, the Warriors, the Bearcats and the more volatile element of the crowd.

Nobody was comfortable with or confident in the officiating. Not the Warriors, who found a lot to point fingers at even on a night when they were assessed two penalties, matching the fewest in head coach June Jones' four seasons at UH. And not the Bearcats, who were slapped with 14 for 117 yards while doing a slow boil all night.

Was it a late hit that sent quarterback Tim Chang to the locker room and helped precipitate the incident? Yes. Was it intentional and meant to harm? Only linebacker Tyjuan Hagler, who flopped into Chang's injured left knee, knows for sure.

But on a night when emotions were already at the flammable level; when the tension of the game, the humidity of the evening and frustration with the officials exacerbated the situation, the incident was enough to help fuel the melee that followed.

Here is where the officiating crew could have — and should have — settled both sides down before allowing play to continue. Here is also where UH needs to limit and better monitor the number and behavior of people it permits on the sidelines and spectators need to be just that, not participants.

Then, there's Cincinnati, which could have used some discipline in the ranks, too.

The biggest disappointment came in the hail of items thrown from the stands, unfortunate testament that many of the Aloha Stadium security measures that once seemed so draconian have become necessary.