The 2014 Miami Beach Bowl was a post-season American college football

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...

played on December 22, 2014, at

Marlins Park LoanDepot Park is a retractable roof stadium located in Miami, Florida. It is the home of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins. It is located on on the site of the former Miami Orange Bowl in Little Havana about west of Downtown Miam ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The first edition of the

Miami Beach Bowl The Miami Beach Bowl was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sanctioned Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football bowl game played for three years (2014–2016) at Marlins Park in Miami, Florida. The bowl was crea ...

, it featured the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

co-champion

Memphis Tigers The Memphis Tigers are the athletic teams that represent the University of Memphis, located in Memphis, Tennessee. The teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the American Athletic C ...

against the BYU Cougars. It began at 2:00 p.m. EST and aired on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

. It was one of the 2014–15 bowl games that comprised the conclusion of the 2014 FBS football season. Memphis defeated BYU in double overtime by the score of 55–48. Afterwards, the two teams engaged in a

bench-clearing brawl A bench-clearing brawl is a form of fighting that occurs in sports, most notably baseball and ice hockey, in which most or all players on both teams leave their dugouts, bullpens, or benches, and charge onto the playing area in order to fight on ...

Team selection

The game featured the

co-champion

against the BYU Cougars. This was the first meeting between these two teams.

BYU Cougars

In April 2014, organizers announced that they had reached a deal with BYU to play in the inaugural Miami Beach Bowl in 2014. After defeating the

UNLV Rebels The UNLV Rebels are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The Rebels compete in the NCAA Division I (Football Bowl Subdivision for college football) as a member of the Mountain West Confe ...

for their sixth win of the season on November 15, bowl director Carlos Padilla II extended an invitation to play in the game. This was BYU's third Florida bowl game, following the 1976 Tangerine Bowl where they lost to

Oklahoma State Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

21–49, and the 1985 Citrus Bowl where they lost to

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

7–10.

Memphis Tigers

After finishing the regular season with a 9–3 record and a share of the American Athletic Conference championship, the Tigers accepted their bid to the Miami Beach Bowl. This was Memphis' second Florida bowl game, following the

2008 St. Petersburg Bowl The 2008 St. Petersburg Bowl was the inaugural edition of the new college football bowl game, and was played at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. The game was played beginning at 4:30 PM US EST on Saturday, December 20, 2008, and ...

(the inaugural contest for that bowl game) where

they In Modern English, ''they'' is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject. Morphology In Standard Modern English, ''they'' has five distinct word forms: * ''they'': the nominative (subjective) form * ''them'': the accusat ...

lost to the

South Florida Bulls The South Florida Bulls (also known as the USF Bulls) are the athletic teams that represent the University of South Florida. USF competes in NCAA Division I and is a member of the American Athletic Conference for all sports besides sailing, ...

by a score of 14–41. This was the Tigers' first bowl appearance since that game.

Game summary

Statistics

Post-game

Brawl

During the post game celebration Memphis players ran towards the BYU sideline to celebrate with their fans sitting behind the BYU bench (due to the bizarre baseball stadium field layout, most of the people in attendance could only sit on the BYU side of the field). Some bumping and shoving occurred and one Memphis player was pushed in the back by a BYU player that was allegedly also being pushed from behind. The Memphis player he pushed then turned around and (using both hands) punched/shoved the BYU player in the back of the head. As the BYU player turned his attention back to the attacker in an apparent attempt to retaliate he threw a punch and he was attacked by 3-4 Memphis players and an all out, bench-clearing brawl ensued. Punches and kicks were thrown by many players on both sides, one Memphis player even used a helmet as a weapon, and when it was over, numerous players walked off the field bloody and bruised. As the brawl was dying down a BYU player (Kai Nacua) can be seen coming into view and sucker punching a Memphis player (Alan Cross), who was not wearing a helmet, from behind. As the BYU player turned toward the camera's view, a bloodied bruise could be clearly seen from a punch he received while attempting to defend himself from another Memphis player earlier in the brawl.

Aftermath

Tom Holmoe, BYU's athletic director, apologized to BYU fans stating, "We expect better of our athletes, even in the face of a difficult loss. We intend to fully review this matter. I apologize to Cougar Nation." Memphis said in a statement via AAC commissioner Mike Aresco that they are displeased with the Miami Beach Bowl brawl, and that, "The university will respond accordingly following this detailed review. Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed that this happened, as we expect the highest standard of conduct from our student-athletes." On January 20, 2015, The University of Memphis announced the completion of an internal review of the incident and expected punishments to be levied against twelve members of the team. BYU also took action to punish their players. Kai Nacua, Trey Dye, Sione Takitaki, and Tomasi Laulile were all suspended for BYU's season opener against Nebraska.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miami Beach Bowl, 2014 2014–15 NCAA football bowl games

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Brawls in team sports College football controversies 2014 controversies in the United States Controversies in Florida 2014 in sports in Florida 2010s in Miami December 2014 sports events in the United States Violence in sports