Fight urge to bring Cincy back
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist
There are some things, like "Water World" movies for instance, for which there just shouldn't be sequels.
In that category, you'd definitely have to include any suggestion of a University of Hawai'i-Cincinnati football rematch on Dec. 25.
If the Bearcats were to win their final two Conference USA games against Alabama-Birmingham and East Carolina, they would be 7-6 and bowl eligible. And since UH is headed for the ConAgra Foods Hawai'i Bowl, which has a tie-in with Conference USA, some people are pushing the idea of Rumble in Halawa II.
Some on the Manoa campus have even gotten behind it, which would make it just about the worst idea there since somebody endorsed a candidate for governor.
Suggestions of a rematch are leftover bravado talking, not common sense, and the events of Saturday night showed what can happen in that equation.
Knowing that Cincinnati was coming here to play UH anyway, the bowl people had said early on they didn't think the Bearcats would be brought back no matter how good the original might turn out. Now, having seen how ugly it was, a return makes even less sense. For a lot of reasons.
For one thing, ESPN already has a regular fight series and it is on Friday nights.
For another, the Bearcats were the most undisciplined team the Warriors have seen this year. Next to Cincinnati, Fresno State was a spit-and-polish ROTC honor guard.
There are reasons the Bearcats ended up with 14 penalties, matching the most by a UH opponent this season, and despite the wailing of the Cincinnati athletic director, most of the blame isn't with the Western Athletic Conference officials. The heaviest betting line on a UH-UC sequel wouldn't be the score but the over/under on fights.
By late in the fourth quarter Saturday night, Cincinnati players were spoiling for a fight and anybody who spent much time on the sidelines had no doubt the Bearcats would eventually find one. Or, in this case, several.
Even if UH were to catch the Bearcats on their best behavior, what do the Warriors really have to gain by playing them again? If they beat Cincinnati for a second time in five weeks, big deal. And, heaven help them if they should lose, validating all the Bearcats' bleatings in the minds of some.
No, what UH needs in a bowl opponent is somebody of sufficient stature or name that if the Warriors win they will have an opportunity to finish the season in the Top 20 for only the second time in school history.
That should be the goal and with a little luck and no more injuries, the Warriors could be 10-3 or 11-2 at bowl time. Beating a 7-6 Cincinnati team isn't going to do much to enhance their standing.
But the best reason of all to forget about a Cincinnati return come bowl time is that Christmas is a time for decking the halls, not each other.
