The 2023 Hula Bowl was a postseason

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

all-star game An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or div ...

played on January 14, 2023, with kickoff at 12:00 noon EST, at

FBC Mortgage Stadium FBC Mortgage Stadium (formerly known as Bright House Networks Stadium and Spectrum Stadium, also known as the Bounce House) is an American football stadium located in Orlando, Florida, United States, on the main campus of the University of Central ...

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

. It was the first all-star contest of the 2022–23 bowl games and, while not restricted to FBS players, one of the final games of the 2022 FBS football season. Television coverage was provided by

CBS Sports Network CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Television also known as ...

. This was the second playing of the

Hula Bowl The Hula Bowl is a post-season college football all-star game held annually, usually in January. From inception through the 2021 playing, it was held in Hawaii; since the 2022 edition, it has been played in Orlando, Florida. The game was first st ...

outside of Hawaii, due to

Aloha Stadium Aloha Stadium is a closed multi-purpose stadium located in Halawa, Hawaii, a western suburb of Honolulu (though with a Honolulu address). It is the largest stadium in the state of Hawaii. , the stadium ceased fan-attended operations indefinitely ...

near

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

being closed for renovations. The game rostered players into Aina and Kai teams, the words for land and sea in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language o ...

. Through sponsorship from the

Tunnel to Towers Foundation The Tunnel to Towers Foundation is a charitable organization founded in tribute to New York Fire Department firefighter Stephen Siller, who died on September 11, 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The foundation operates as a tax-exempt 501(c ...

, the game was officially named the 2023 Tunnel to Towers Foundation Hula Bowl.

Players

Selected players are listed below. Full roster are available online
link
; note that a number may be shared by an offensive and defensive player. Two players from Japan participated in the game: Kento Ogushi (CB,

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

) and Mikito Itokawa (WR,

Kwansei Gakuin University , colloquially known as , is a private, non-denominational Christian coeducational university in Japan. The university offers Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees to around 25,000 students in almost 40 different disciplines across 11 u ...

Team Aina

Coach: Mike Smith

Team Kai

Coach:

Brian Billick Brian Harold Billick (born February 28, 1954) is an American former American football, football coach and commentator. He was the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings from 1994 to 1998; the team broke the National Football League, NF ...

Game summary

Team Kai wore white uniforms and Team Aina wore dark uniforms. The game was played using

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) rules; however, punt returns were not allowed. In place of kickoffs, teams automatically started possessions at their own 25-yard line. The game was officiated by an all-female crew, assigned by the NFL "from their development pool of college officials." Referee Amanda Sauer had previously served as the center judge in the

2022 Fenway Bowl The 2022 Fenway Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 17, 2022, at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. The inaugural Fenway Bowl, the game featured Cincinnati from the American Athletic Conference and Louisville from the A ...

. Note: bowl organizers had the three placekickers (Dunn, Podlesny, and Brown) rotate through opportunities to kick during the game, regardless of team affiliations.Nick Lowery in-game interview with Jack Podlesny

References

External links

*
2023 Hula Bowl
via

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Game statistics
via statbroadcast.com {{DEFAULTSORT:2023 Hula Bowl

American football in Florida