When the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys meet on Saturday, it will be nearly 43 years to the day since the only other time NFL teams played a preseason game at Aloha Stadium. A crowd of 36,364 showed up on Aug. 21, 1976 to see the 49ers edge the Chargers 17-16.
When tickets quickly sold out for this Saturday’s exhibition, it seemed a good time to rank the biggest games in the history of Aloha Stadium, which has been open since 1975. So the Star-Advertiser sports staff voted on the most memorable sports events ever staged at the 50,000-seat Halawa facility.
Not surprisingly, seven of the top 10 are University of Hawaii football games. Just one of the top 10 — the Major League Baseball series between the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals — is not a football game.
More than half of the voters chose UH’s victory over Washington to cap the 2007 undefeated regular season as No. 1. That game had importance (the win put the Warriors in the Sugar Bowl) and drama (Ryan Mouton’s last-minute interception sealed a comeback victory).
“It was surreal, and honestly if it weren’t for Gerard Lewis tipping the pass I wouldn’t have been able to make a play on the ball.” said Mouton, who grew up in Texas as a Cowboys fan. “Being able to have that sellout crowd and have them behind us the entire game as we completed the comeback is one of the best feelings ever. I can still hear the roar of the fans and I have this picture that I keep of all the fans cheering and raising their hands after I caught that interception.”
1. PERFECTION
Dec. 1, 2007 (49,566)
Hawaii 35, Washington 28
It was a fitting end to Hawaii’s 2007 football season. As they had four times earlier in the season, the Warriors fell behind early or had to come back late. This time, the Huskies — UH’s only regular-season opponent from a major conference — took a 21-0 lead in the first quarter. But Colt Brennan, who would finish third in the Heisman Trophy voting, threw five touchdown passes, four to Jason Rivers. The fifth was to Ryan Grice-Mullins with 44 seconds left.
Washington then got to the Hawaii 4. But after Solomon Elimimian stopped Jake Locker for a 2-yard loss, Ryan Mouton intercepted Locker’s pass in the end zone with three seconds left.
The victory propelled Hawaii — the only unbeaten Division I (FBS) team — to its first and to this date only New Year’s Day bowl game
2. FINALLY
Oct. 28, 1989 (46,841)
Hawaii 56, BYU 14
More than a decade of futility against the Cougars ended emphatically. The Rainbows scored on their first five possessions, with Garrett Gabriel completing 14 of his first 15 passes.
Gabriel threw for a then-school-record 440 yards, and Chris Roscoe caught eight passes for 158 yards as UH deviated from its usual flexbone running offense.
“We knew how the defense was going to line up and it was nothing tricky,” Gabriel said.
Hawaii amassed 622 yards against BYU, which had won the previous 10 meetings of the Western Athletic Conference teams.
“We could have scored 70 points tonight,” said UH safety Walter Briggs, who intercepted two Ty Detmer passes.
5. BCS BUSTER
Dec. 8, 2001 (46,958)
Hawaii 72, BYU 45
Both teams came into this game feeling disrespected — BYU because it was undefeated and feeling left out of the BCS picture, the Warriors because BYU seemed to be looking past them. Plus, UH was 8-3 and shut out of the bowl picture completely.
Hawaii was much, much better at proving its point. Nick Rolovich continued his torrid late-season run, throwing eight touchdown passes to total 20 in his last three games. Freshman Chad Owens ran wild, returning both a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns, and totaling an NCAA-record 342 return yards.
Pisa Tinoisamoa’s crushing goal-line tackle of quarterback Brandon Doman as the first half ended with Hawaii leading 31-10 deflated BYU’s hopes for a comeback. When Craig Stutzmann punted the pigskin into the stands after his TD reception made it 52-24, there was really no need to put another ball in play — even with nearly 19 minutes left.
The fact that a sizzling Hawaii team with a 9-3 record had no bowl in which to play led to the creation of the Hawaii Bowl.
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