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By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
When it came down to it last night, when the University of Hawai'i football team stared down the bleakness of a pending premature end to its season, the Warriors reached back for one more big, improbable comeback.
In that their final regular season game was their 2004 season in heart-thumping microcosm, a game of stirring comebacks that underlined this whole remarkable season-long rally from an 0-and-2 beginning with losses against Florida Atlantic and Rice to a 7-5 finish.
In bouncing back with a purposeful vengeance from a 21-0 second-quarter deficit to triumph 41-38 over Michigan State and bull their way into a third consecutive Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl appearance, the victory became a 3 hour, 50 minute testament to their resiliency in a 12-game test of tenacity that began Sept. 4, three months ago to the day.
It should all be familiar by now, another in a series of fourth-quarter chicken skin moments, a second determined rally in as many weeks against a team with a Big Ten swagger after falling to an early 13-0 deficit to Northwestern the week before.
"They couldn't have done it any better than they did it," head coach June Jones told the enthusiastic holdovers of a crowd of 35,938 as UH accepted a bid to play Alabama-Birmingham on Dec. 24.
Indeed, this was high drama for ESPN and for the hardy souls on the East Coast still turned in a 3:27 a.m. Not a few of them, you figure, in Akron, Ohio, where the Zips would have taken the Warriors' place in the bowl had Michigan State prevailed.
A poetic payback, perhaps, for the Zips, who dropped out of a contracted game two seasons ago that forced UH to schedule Division I-AA Appalachian State.
But this was more a statement game about the Warriors by the Warriors, who vowed Senior Night would not be their last night. Not this season, not for a team that had come so far together.
"I just wanted it so bad," said slotback Chad Owens, one of the men who ignited the comeback with the kind of multiple touchdown night that is almost becoming routine for him. This time with four touchdowns and 13 catches for 283 yards.
When he grabbed the first of them, a 36-yard pass from quarterback Tim Chang 56 second before halftime to cut the gap to 21-14, Owens shook his fists in the end zone. Not in challenge but in confidence that the tide had turned.
"It was (not losing), not in our house, not on this day," Owens said. "The guys worked too hard to not have a bowl bid. Everyone wanted it so much."
And it showed in so many ways and so many places. The Warriors would not be distracted by the flare of emotions that threatened to boil over in the second quarter when a player from each side was ejected. You saw senior defensive lineman Matt Faga tap his helmet in saying to his teammates "use your heads."
There was Chang running for big first downs and, for only the fifth time in his 49 starts, even a touchdown. There was West Keli'ikipi and the offensive line giving the Spartans a dose of smash mouth football, Polynesian style. And, the defense weighed in with crucial stops.
Some fans in the lower bleachers held a sign saying: "All I Want 4 Christmas is UH @ the HI Bowl."
The Warriors wanted it, too, and in this season-long quest they would not be denied.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
