A brawl marred the end of the inaugural Miami Beach Bowl, overshadowing a dramatic 55-48 double-overtime victory by Memphis over Brigham Young in which both teams combined for nearly 1,000 yards in total offense.
The football squads, neither known for past squabbles, found themselves at loggerheads after the game that ended with DaShaugh Terry's interception, preventing Brigham Young from going into a third overtime at Marlins Park,
according to the Miami Herald.
After the interception, Memphis players tried to reach their cheering section behind the Brigham Young bench when punches were exchanged, sparking a melee.
"It was an onslaught of celebration coming at us, so who knows from there?" BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall told the Herald. "Just one excited team and one frustrated team after the game. When you put those two together, hard to know where it went and how that all starts."
Memphis Tigers coach Justin Fuente didn't let his winning team off the hook, saying it wasn't the image his team wanted to leave the bowl game with.
"My message to the kids is going to be you can work hard all your life, try to do things right and you make one bad decision and all of a sudden it’s going to stick with you," said Fuente. "I don't know what happened, but that’s not who we want to represent or who we want to be."
Cougars' athletic director Tom Holmoe posted an apology on behalf of Brigham Young on Twitter.
The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that Memphis defensive end Martin Ifedi appeared to have thrown a forearm at the head of BYU center Tejan Koroma. Cougar players rushed to his defense as Koroma was surrounded by Memphis players.
The Tribune noted that Koroma was penalized during the game for a personal foul against Memphis when he continued to block a Tigers player after a BYU score.
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