Plotting a comeback
| • | For starters, they'll line up for Hawai'i on Saturday |
| • | 2001 UH football roster |
| • | Players draw inspiration from 'Honorary Warrior' |
| • | 2001 UH opponent series history |
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
This is the University of Hawai'i football schedule that was to have opened with Iowa State and closed with a visit by Notre Dame. And, now, it has neither.
Welcome to a year of improvisation for the Warriors, on the schedule and on the field. An adjust-on-the-fly campaign that features a schedule that has been juggled and a defense that has been partially shaken up to play it.
Old foes that parted as enemies with the bitter breakup of the old, 16-team Western Athletic Conference and birth of the Mountain West, Air Force and Brigham Young, are now welcomed back as scheduling replacements.
And, players who were found on the defensive line last year, Joe Correia and Chris Brown, to name two, have been moved inside to play linebacker and add teeth to the retooled Warrior defense.
It is year three of head coach June Jones' reign and while some of the pieces — quarterback, running back, etc. — are starting to fall in place, others are still a work in progress.
What the Warriors can fashion out of it is anybody's guess heading into Saturday's opener on Maui. But since the opener with Montana will soon be upon us and it is our job to take a stab at prognostication, here is one crystal ball reading that comes without a money-back guarantee and forecasts a 7-5 record.
• Sept. 8 Montana.
This year's Warriors get an opportunity to do something no Jones-head coached team has done at UH — win the opener.
Having learned the hard way their lessons about Division I-AA teams last year against Portland State, and realizing this game counts for bowl-qualifying purposes, the Warriors pass the test this time.
UH 27, UM 20.
• Sept. 15 at Nevada
Do the Warriors have the attitude to win at altitude?
Not since early in 1998, the final season of the old Rocky Mountain-based WAC, have they played anywhere that tested their lungs and legs as much as their talent.
At 4,546 feet, the highest elevation in the new WAC, it is time to pass around the oxygen — and the football.
The Warriors do both well: UH 38, UN 21.
• Sept. 29 Rice
The Owls have had UH's number as the only team in the current WAC Hawai'i hasn't beaten.
One of these days that will change.
Unfortunately, this isn't it yet: RU 17, UH 14.
• Oct. 6 at Southern Methodist
They say everything is bigger in Texas and what better place than Dallas for the Warriors' own Big "D" to step up and make a winning statement.
The defense makes a critical fourth-quarter stand to seal this one:
UH 21, SMU 20.
• Oct. 13 Texas-El Paso
It has been, what, 70 months since UH fired Bob Wagner as its head football coach.
But who's counting?
Probably Wagner, whose return to Aloha Stadium this time comes as UTEP's defensive coordinator.
Not only is this a WAC showdown of importance, it matches head-to-head Jones' offense and Wagner's defense in a meeting of two of the past three UH head coaches.
Round One goes to Wagner: UTEP 24, UH 21.
• Oct. 20 at Tulsa.
The last time they stepped into Skelly Stadium, the Warriors introduced a raw, green freshman to the rigors of WAC football.
Two years later, quarterback Josh Blankenship shows how far he has come.
TU 28, UH 21.
• Oct. 26 Fresno State
The Bulldogs' non-conference schedule reads like a coach's worst nightmare: Colorado, Oregon State, Wisconsin, Colorado State...
If FSU somehow survives that gauntlet sturdy of life and limb, look out WAC:
FSU 21, UH 17.
• Nov. 3 San Jose State
Last year the Spartans knocked Tim Chang out of action for two games with one questionable hit. This time it is the Warriors' quarterback who lands the telling blows in a shootout.
UH 35, SJSU 31.
• Nov. 10 Boise State
If there is a trapdoor team on this schedule, the Broncos could be it.
Beware the team that went 10-2 last year in the Big West, beat UTEP in the Humanatarian Bowl and now takes aim at its inaugural season in the WAC.
The step up in conferences will mean an adjustment but in a given week, watch out.
UH 34, BSU 30.
• Nov. 17 Miami
Miami!
Relax, it is not THAT Miami. It is the one in Oxford, Ohio, not Florida.
Still, the Red Hawks have enough to make it interesting in this MAC vs. WAC battle.
UH 28, MU 24.
• Nov. 24 Air Force
Originally, this was the weekend Notre Dame was scheduled to come calling. But it has decided to venture only as far as the West Coast and will play Stanford instead.
So much for the pluck of the Irish.
Right after Thanksgiving the Warriors will give thanks that the Falcons agreed to step in and fill the vacancy.
In what shapes up as their final exam in option football, the Warriors earn a passing grade:
UH 33, AF 24.
• Dec. 1 Brigham Young
LaVell Edwards has retired to the chair on his porch in Provo, Utah, and Norm Chow is calling plays at Southern California.
So, just exactly who are these new guys anyway?
Never mind. They wear blue, they throw the ball, they are BYU and beating them is what people care about.
The Cougars end a UH winning streak, but reignite a series in a good-'til-the-last-pass game:
BYU 42, UH 37.
