By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

For a couple years now, University of Hawai'i football coach June Jones has told anybody who would listen — and even some who wouldn't — that the day was fast approaching when the Warriors would become the No. 1 passing team in the country.

"Write this down 'cause it will happen," Jones resolutely promised before he'd even won his first game in Manoa.

"Next year for sure," Jones predicted last winter looking over the roster of returning players.

"Somewhere around the eighth or ninth game, when we get hitting on all cylinders," Jones forecast this fall as quarterback Tim Chang began to shake off rust and injuries.

Well, it was a sign of where these Warriors are that even on a night when they weren't hitting on all or even most cylinders; when their offense spit and sputtered like an old Studebaker plodding up the Pali, they still figure to find themselves on top of the NCAA passing stats after a less-than-rousing 40-31 victory over San Jose State last night.

The Warriors overthrew receivers, dropped passes, missed reads and committed enough penalties to keep them in confession for a week. And that was just the error-strewn first half.

But in this, their ninth game, the suddenly 7-2 Warriors also put enough pieces together — Chang and Shawn Withy-Allen combining to complete 34 of 59 pass attempts — to put up 440 yards. When the NCAA stats are totaled, UH will probably supplant Marshall as the foremost passing offense at 398 yards per game.

They tagged the Western Athletic Conference's worst pass defense — No. 113 out of 117 Division I-A teams — for four touchdowns to clinch a berth in the inaugural ConAgra Foods Hawai'i Bowl on Christmas Day.

"It was, well ... it was real, real ugly," Chang said afterward. "I forced passes (resulting in two interceptions), missed some reads and some (open) receivers. We weren't as crisp as we should have been."

But, then, that is part and parcel of the wonder of this run-and-shoot offense: all it takes is a few plays to turn everything around. A handful of completions to negotiate the length of the field or put a game away as the Warriors did going 80 yards in the fourth quarter when last pressed by the Spartans, 33-31.

"All it takes is a play here or there and we can be moving down the field in a hurry," said Justin Colbert, whose 11 catches for 156 yards led the Warriors.

"With this offense we feel like no matter how bad things can get sometimes, we can change it all with a pass or two," Withy-Allen said. "Really, when we get things going, there's nobody that can stop us but ourselves."

Last night, when it came right down to it, not even they could.