“(Garrett) Gabriel had two great games against us. The matchups were always a little difficult for us when they spread it out, particularly with the slotbacks.”
— LaVell Edwards, 2001
”(Dillon Gabriel is) the calmest guy I’ve ever been around at the quarterback position. He was fearless.” — Brent Venables, 2023
If you are like me and believe in such things, you must figure University of Hawaii coaching legend Bob Wagner, who died Wednesday, was smiling from above the Red River Showdown in Dallas.
In Saturday’s biggest college football game, a son of one of Wagner’s brightest Rainbow Warriors stars beat a team coached by a BYU alum — and not just any Cougar, but one who was part of ending Wagner’s tenure at UH.
Garrett Gabriel was beaming Saturday, too. He was there as his son Dillon quarterbacked Oklahoma to a 34-30 victory over Texas, including a 3-yard scoring pass with 15 seconds left. It capped a game-winning drive that started at the OU 25 with a minute and change left.
On that final drive, Dillon Gabriel completed all four of his passes for 58 yards. Overall, he completed 23 of 38 pass attempts for 285 yards and no interceptions and rushed for 113 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries.
“Working with (Dillon) from the time he was a small kid, I always told him we don’t know when, whether it’s high school or some other time, people know you can play and you’re going to have an opportunity on a big stage. And even if it’s the biggest stage, you’re capable,” the father said in a phone interview Saturday.
“For his confidence, this will really help him,” Garrett Gabriel added. “He’s faced some obstacles (including multiple injuries). Things are finally looking up. He just has to remember that on any given day, anything can happen, especially with the talent of these kids now days. But just think of it, I told him after, ‘This is your last Red River, and you were a big part of it.’”
Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian was the starting quarterback at BYU in 1995 and ’96, when the Cougars outscored the Rainbow Warriors 45-7 and 45-14. In the ’95 game Sarkisian completed 19 of 24 passes, including for three first-half touchdowns. Wagner was fired at the end of a 4-8 season.
Many cried foul, though, since it was just three years after Wagner coached UH to its greatest season to date. In 1992, Hawaii went 11-2, including a WAC championship and a 27-17 victory over Illinois in the Holiday Bowl. It was the program’s first bowl victory on the continent.
And just a couple of years before that, Garrett Gabriel torched rival BYU’s defense in 1989 and ’90, passing from UH’s normally ground-hugging flexbone attack for a combined 779 yards and seven touchdowns in 56-14 and 59-28 blowouts. The first win broke a 10-game, 15-year losing streak against the Cougars.
Garrett won a national player of the week award after the ’90 game, something that could be in store for his son now after leading No. 12 Oklahoma past third-ranked Texas.
If today’s transfer rules were in effect, Garrett Gabriel might not have stayed at UH long enough to make history, he said.
“I was just thinking of that recently. I did think about leaving when Coach Wags changed the offense, because everyone knows running isn’t my forte. But he’s the reason I stayed. Coach Wagner’s words to me were, ‘I’ll give you a shot.’ And he lived up to it. He was real truthful with me,” Gabriel said. “It worked out pretty well. If it was now, the chances would be more likely I’d transfer. But looking back on it, if I did then, I wouldn’t have had those games against BYU.
“Losing Coach Wags this week was a shock,” Gabriel added. “He stayed in touch with us, and just recently he asked how Dillon was doing. We always exchanged pleasantries. He’s just down to earth, didn’t put himself on a pedestal, just a really good, ordinary person and truly a players’ coach.”
Edwards spoke about the ’89 and ’90 games a few days before another Warriors blowout of the Cougars, 72-45, in 2001.
“I think they surprised us with the passing and they found us vulnerable to it so they kept going with it,” said Edwards, who was then retired and died in 2016.
Wagner also spoke in 2001 of those games.
“That first win was probably as perfect a game as I’ve been involved in, offense and defense. We scored on eight of our first nine possessions and set a school record for sacks,” he said. “We had young players who didn’t know they weren’t supposed to beat them. Especially after winning the second time, Jeff Sydner and those guys were thinking that’s the way it’s supposed to happen.”
Garrett Gabriel, who graduated from Maryknoll, where he was All-State in basketball in addition to in football playing for Pac-Five, now coaches basketball at Mililani High. That’s where Dillon was an All-State quarterback, succeeding McKenzie Milton. Dillon also followed Milton to Central Florida for college, starting at quarterback there before taking the transfer portal to Oklahoma in time for the 2022 season.
He missed last year’s Texas game with a concussion. But when Dillon Gabriel got his chance, he was at his best against his school’s rival.
It’s in his blood.
