"This is so unbelievable," said Jones, his voice reduced to a whisper. "For what these kids did this year, for what they did in this game, it's so awesome. I'm kind of speechless."

He then turned, spotting one of his closest friends in football, defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville.

"Jerry," Jones said, "they did it."

"I'm so proud of them," Glanville said, as the two embraced.

"This is just a great group of kids, just great," Jones said. "The staff did a great job, too. What happened this season ... it's just a real powerful time. I'll never forget this moment."

Many of the memories will be stored in the NCAA record book, in part to the historic performances of quarterback Colt Brennan and left wideout Jason Rivers.

In completing 33 of 42 passes for 559 yards and five touchdowns, Brennan set the NCAA single-season record for TD passes. He finished UH's 11-3 season with 58 scoring passes, eclipsing David Klinger's 16-year-old record of 54.

Fourteen of those completions – and two touchdowns — were air-mailed to Rivers, whose 308 receiving yards were an NCAA record for a bowl game.

The Christmas season isn't about receiving, and Rivers said: "I gave. I gave to my team. I gave to the seniors on our team. I didn't receive anything. All of those catches were gifts to them."

Rivers' parting shot came in the final minutes, when the Warriors, ahead 34-24, were prepared to run out the clock. But after Brennan was bumped twice following running back Nate Ilaoa's run, Jones decided to spread the offense. Rivers slanted across the middle, caught Brennan's pass and raced untouched the rest of the way to complete the 79-yard touchdown play.

"I felt it was the nail in the coffin," Rivers said. "It felt good to put the game out of reach."

It also helped the Warriors break the NCAA record for most points in a season, with 657, and tie the team record for victories. UH was 11-2 in 1992.

"This is what it's all about," said Brennan, who is a fourth-year junior. "This is why you play college football, to experience memories like this."

It is why, Brennan reiterated, "my intentions are to come back" as a fifth-year senior. Still, he plans to evaluate the option of applying for the NFL draft. He said he will announce a decision in the next month.

In the first half, in which the Sun Devils led 10-3, the only question was: What's wrong with the Warriors' four-wide offense? The nation's scoring leaders were limited to Daniel Kelly's 42-yard field goal. Kelly also missed an attempt from the same distance on the Warriors' first possession.

"The offense wasn't flat," Brennan insisted. "We only punted once in the first half. We're rolling. We make little mistakes. We get into the red zone and we don't capitalize. It's just little things."

The Warriors missed a scoring chance on one of Brennan's best plays. He rolled to his left, and then, throwing against the grain, lofted a pass to a wide-open Ian Sample on the right side. Sample could not secure the pass.

"He drops it, but so what?" Brennan said. "Ian's a great player and he's made a lot of plays for us this year. But if he does catch it, it's 10-10, and nobody is saying our offense is bad.

"I remember where there was a read I had, and I threw it to Ryan (Grice-Mullins) on the sideline, even though Davone (Bess) is wide open," Brennan added. "If I make that read, it's 17-10. But we don't. We miss those opportunities. But what you do is you weather the storm. You stay positive. You stay focused."

During the extended intermission, the three UH captains — center Samson Satele, defensive end Ikaika Alama-Francis and safety Leonard Peters — implored their teammates to, well, play as a team.

"I told them we needed to hang together, stick together," Alama-Francis said. "That's what we did."

The Sun Devils' strategy was to align the two safeties in deep coverage. UH decided to open the second half by having Bess, the left slotback, clear out. That left Rivers, who is 6 feet 2 and 192 pounds, to face solo coverage.

The first two plays of the second half were out patterns to Rivers, for 13 and 10 yards. The Warriors then called for two running plays, inducing the Sun Devils to move up their secondary. That set the way for Brennan to loft a fade pass to a wide-open Rivers for a 38-yard touchdown, tying it at 10.

"When we got that first touchdown, the butterflies were gone," Brennan said.

UH defensive end Melila Purcell's sack forced ASU to punt.