The 2023 Hula Bowl was a postseason

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

all-star game An all-star game is an exhibition game that showcases 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 division, bu ...

played on January 14, 2023, with kickoff at 12:00 noon EST, at FBC Mortgage Stadium in

Orlando, Florida Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...

. 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 digital cable and satellite 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 ...

. 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 s ...

outside of Hawaii, due to

Aloha Stadium Aloha Stadium is a closed multi-purpose stadium in Halawa, Hawaii, a census-designated place that is a western suburb of Honolulu. It is the largest stadium in the state of Hawaii. , the stadium ceased fan-attended operations indefinitely, and ...

near

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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 critically endangered Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family, originating in and native to the Hawaiian Islands. It is the native language of the Hawaiian people. Hawaiian, along with English, is an offi ...

. Through sponsorship from the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, 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 Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

) 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 underg ...

Team Aina

Coach: Mike Smith

Team Kai

Coach: Brian Billick

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 gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

(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. 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

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

American football in Florida