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First Look At Hawaii Bowl As Hawaii Hosts Rival BYU

Former WAC foes meet again on the islands.

Get to know the bowl game.

It’s bowl season for the ‘Bows. Hawaii will get the honor of staying home to play in the SoFi Hawaii Bowl. After a loss in the Mountain West Championship game, the Rainbow Warriors will look to finish their season on a high note, as the BYU Cougars come to town. This game is technically a neutral site game, although it is being played at Aloha Stadium. BYU is listed as the home team and opens up as an early two-point favorite.

The Rainbow Warriors were expected to be here, but not in the fashion they did it. The Warriors finished out the regular season at 9-4, winning the West division of the Mountain West. They went into Boise this past Saturday and put up a fight against the Broncos, but it wasn’t good enough as they lost 31-10.

Nick Rolovich finally broke through during his fourth season as his run-n-shoot offense found a way to go 9-5 and winning the West. Led by redshirt junior quarterback, Cole McDonald, the passing game for Hawaii was one of the tops in the country. He did have some help from Chevan Corderio as McDonald was pulled a few times due to inconsistent play.

The Bows averaged 326 yards per game in the air, the sixth most in the country. Four different Hawaii receivers had over 800 receiving yards this season.

https://twitter.com/HawaiiBowl/status/1203841896868646913

BYU comes in looking a little different. The Cougars have a 7-5 record, with wins over Tennessee and USC. The Cougars are 2-1 against Mountain West opponents, they gave Boise State their only loss of the regular season.

Zach Wilson is the starting quarterback for the Cougars. He has thrown for 2,108 yards, but only having played in eight games due to injury.

Their tight end, Matt Bushman, is the leading receiver for BYU. He has 41 receptions for 597 yards, including breaking the 100 yard mark in the game against Boise State and scoring twice.

Their head coach is Kalani Sitake. This is his fourth season at the helm of the BYU football program. He has led the team to a winning record in three of the four seasons he’s been with the Cougars, this year being the third. Sitake looks to defend his currently undefeated bowl record at 2-0.

https://twitter.com/kslsports/status/1204127878612340736

This game is the only one on the docket for Christmas Eve with the game on ESPN which kicks at 8 p.m. ET.

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