2024 Hawaii Bowl
The 2024 Hawaii Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 24, 2024, at Clarence T. C. Ching Athletics Complex located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The 21st annual Hawaii Bowl game featured South Florida and San Jose State. The game began at approximately 3:00 p.m. HST and aired on ESPN. The Hawaii Bowl was one of the 2024–25 bowl games concluding the 2024 FBS football season.
The game took five overtime periods to decide, which at the time set a new record for the most overtime periods in a Football Bowl Subdivision bowl game. However, this record was surpassed just two days later when the 2024 GameAbove Sports Bowl took six overtimes to decide.
Teams
Consistent with conference tie-ins, the game featured South Florida from the American Athletic Conference and San Jose State from the Mountain West Conference. South Florida and San Jose State had played once before, in 2017, which South Florida won, 42–22. The game was San Jose State's second appearance in the Hawaii Bowl, and South Florida's first.
South Florida Bulls
The Bulls started their season with a win over Bethune–Cookman, but fell the following week to eighth-ranked Alabama. South Florida had a three-game losing streak in the middle of the season, but were able to recover in the latter half of the year, clinching bowl eligibility on November 23 after beating Tulsa, 63–30, at home. The Bulls ended their regular season with a loss to Rice, which brought their regular season record to 6–6.
San Jose State Spartans
The Spartans started their season with three consecutive wins before losing to Washington State in double-overtime. They then alternated winning and losing games before clinching bowl eligibility on November 9 by beating Oregon State, 24–13. San Jose State ended the regular season with a 34–31 win against Stanford in the Bill Walsh Legacy Game to bring their record to 7–5.