BYU and Memphis Bowl Game Ends In Brawl

The Miami Beach Bowl, a harmless Monday game in the midst of bowl season, between the BYU Cougars (8-5) and Memphis Tigers (10-3) came down to the wire, with the Tigers overcoming two overtimes to win off a Christian Stewart thrown pick. But immediately following the interception absolute anarchy erupted on the field, where pushing and shoving resulted in an all-out brawl between the two sides.

The above video clearly displays the tension and even a fair amount of punches thrown: with coaches finally being able to separate the two sides after the damage was already done. At the moment, the best view of the whole incident is over at Deadspin, where they do not show the origin of the fight, but simply have the best video of the event.

At the same time, Reddit CFB’s Vine page has posted what allegedly sparked the incident: BYU’s Tejan Koroma shoved Memphis’ Martin Ifedi post-game.

And this allegedly ignited the ugly ending, where cheap shots were thrown from both sides. In the following vines, BYU defensive back Kai Nacua, after being bloodied in the fight, sucker punched a Memphis player in the back of the head. And worst of all, Memphis’ Chase Johnson removed his helmet and appears to use it as a weapon.

It is terrible to see something like this after what appeared to be a heart-pounding finish: there is no doubt that there are going to be some suspensions handed down, but some of these offenses are pretty dire. If the LaGarrette Blount punch resulted in an indefinite suspension, then some of these players are going to be in for a rude awakening.

Current Memphis Athletic Director Tom Bowen promises to review tape with Coach Fuentes and hand out “appropriate disciplinary measures.” And BYU AD Tom Holmoe took to twitter to basically state the same thing, while also apologizing to fans.