Miners have score to settle

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

The University of Hawai'i football team was scheduled to arrive in El Paso, Texas, early this morning for the second leg of what has become the "Payback Tour."

Saturday in the Sun Bowl, host Texas-El Paso is seeking to erase the memory of last year's 66-7 UH rout.

"A lot of people around here have had that game circled since we got the schedule generated," UTEP offensive lineman Ariel Famaligi told The Advertiser. "Hawai'i embarrassed us pretty bad last year. A lot of people around here aren't very happy about that."

Although the Warriors used their second- and third-string players most of the second half, they continued to operate their run-and-shoot offense. A fourth-quarter UH scoring pass "didn't sit well with us for a year," Famaligi said. "You gear yourself up a little more when teams do that to you."

UTEP coach Gary Nord has tried to downplay the rivalry, saying, "It's hard to look backward. We're a different team than we were last year, and Hawai'i's a different team. It wasn't like they ran the score up on us. We just couldn't stop them. It wasn't that they did anything out of the ordinary. They were running their offense and we couldn't stop them. We were so bad we couldn't slow them down. I don't see last year's game playing any effect into this year's."

Still, Famaligi acknowledged the return trip from Honolulu to El Paso gave the Miners time to simmer.

"It was five or six hours to L.A., then from L.A. back to El Paso," he said. "It wasn't very fun. Whenever you lose, it's a tough ride back home. But when you get an extended trip like that, you get a little extra time to think about things."

The Miners still are smarting after losing by a combined 145-17 in consecutive losses to Kentucky and Oklahoma.

"I think we've got plenty of things to get ourselves motivated on the last two weeks," Nord said.

"I'd say so," Famaligi added. "We're still trying to get over what happened last week. But I think we're doing a good job of focusing on this week. This is something the players around here have been waiting for. ... Hopefully, we can come out with a big surge and do some good things early."

UH coach June Jones said he warned his players about the Miners' anticipation.

"We've been talking about it all week," Jones said. The Miners "are going to play their hardest, most emotional game. ... A lot of it is (because of) the last two games, they're 0-0 in the WAC, they're coming home, what happened last year, the whole deal."