Utah’s Kemoeatu will sit one game for kick

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2003 | 9:26 a.m.

Utah head coach Urban Meyer, who told reporters after Saturday's game that starting guard Chris Kemoeatu would be kicked off the team for the rest of the season if it was determined he had been ejected for kicking Rebels nose guard Howie Fuimaono in the face, was singing a different tune on Monday.

Kemoeatu, who had been ejected a week earlier from a game at San Diego State for also kicking a player in a pile-up, will serve at least a one-game suspension and attend anger management classes instead. That punishment was agreed to by Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson.

Because Kemoeatu was ejected for a flagrant personal foul penalty and not fighting, the Utes technically didn't even have to suspend Kemoeatu for one game, according to Javan Hedlund, director of communications for the Mountain West Conference. NCAA rules mandate that a player who is ejected twice in a season for fighting, which Kemoeatu was at San Diego State, be suspended for the remainder of the season.

So it appears a rules technicality and a sudden change of heart by Meyer may have saved Kemoeatu, a 6-foot-4, 339-pounder from Hawaii, from sitting out the rest of the season.

UNLV coach John Robinson said the incident, which first saw Fuimaono get his helmet ripped off and then ended with Kemoeatu's straight-on kick into the face, "the worst I've seen in my time as an athlete. It was a serious, serious incident. I thought Howie was injured badly."

Fuimaono had blurred vision and headaches for several hours after one of Kemoeatu's cleats connected with his left eye socket but did not suffer any major injuries from the kick.

Meyer told the Deseret News that "there's no place for that" while announcing Kemoeatu's suspension and said the junior offensive guard is a quality player and person.

"He's a good person," Meyer said. "I think the worst thing that can come out of this is that Chris Kemoeatu is a bad person. That's not the case at all."