The Tulane University football team got run over by a “truck” in the fourth quarter Saturday night and everybody in Aloha Stadium got the license plate number.
It was the guy in black jersey No. 30, for the University of Hawaii, running back Joey Iosefa.
“Man, that guy was a truck load,” marveled Green Wave defensive end Dezman Moses. “He was a 60-minute banger.”
Good thing, too, because the Warriors needed him most in the final 11 minutes, 36 seconds of this one to preserve what became a 35-23 victory — and, at 6-6, their flickering hopes of a winning season and a Sheraton Hawaii Bowl appearance on Dec. 24 heading into the regular-season finale against Brigham Young.
Iosefa scored two touchdowns, ran for 63 yards and caught four passes for 29 yards, but his full 240-pound impact was felt time and again in the Warriors’ telltale fourth-quarter scoring drive.
When Tulane closed to 28-23 with 11 minutes, 42 seconds remaining, you could sense the “oh, no, here we could go again” dread among the hardy 21,542 bundled against the cold and rain in Halawa.
After three consecutive losses, each coming in the final minutes, this had the potential of another deja vu disaster. One that would have killed bowl hopes and a season.
That’s where the Warriors unleashed the full fury of their redshirt freshman running back. That’s where, in the words of offensive coordinator Nick Rolovich, the Warriors tell him “to do what he does best and deliver some punishment.”
Iosefa, a high school quarterback in American Samoa who continues to grow into the running back role, rushed for 20 yards on second down, and four plays later gathered in a pass and took it for another 20 yards, stiff-arming a defensive back and dropping two defenders like bowling pins in the process.
Then he went 3 yards, dragging four defenders with him. “He’s a tough guy to bring down,” acknowledged Tulane linebacker Zach Davis.
And Iosefa was getting even tougher as he took UH inside the 1-yard line. When quarterback Shane Austin was unable to jam it in from there on third down and UH called a timeout, everybody in the place knew whom the Warriors should go to on fourth down. Just not where, though.
The option pitch from Austin made it interesting and, for Iosefa, a breeze, as he went around left end, untouched, into the end zone with 7 minutes, 3 seconds remaining.
You got the feeling Iosefa longed for an opportunity to pound it in with trademark black and blue ferocity as the crowd clearly hoped. But Iosefa maintained, “Just as long as we got the score to secure the lead, it didn’t matter. Either way was fine to me. The only thing on my mind was just run the ball in and get that score whether I have to run anybody over or not.”
A good part of the motivation was making amends for an earlier fumble that had allowed the Green Wave a third-quarter safety and given Tulane the ball to start their fourth-quarter drive. “I wanted to work hard and make up for it,” Iosefa said.
In that Iosefa got the last word. “He took over the momentum of the game and was able to finish it off,” Davis said. “That’s what big backs do, the good ones,” Moses added. “You have to respect that in an opponent and we did.”
Where there was a will Saturday night, there was Iosefa showing the way.
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
