Posted on: Friday, September 19, 2003

Time for this team to establish an identity

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

LAS VEGAS — University of Nevada-Las Vegas football coach John Robinson has spent much of the week talking up the hard-nosed personality of his team.

And, after last week's 23-5 upset of then-No. 14 Wisconsin in the Madison, Wis., rain, there is much to talk about.

But what of the University of Hawai'i, UNLV's opponent today on ESPN2?

What do we really know about the personality of these Warriors? Two games into the season, it is still anybody's guess what they are really made of and exactly who they are when the lights go on.

Is this the team that confidently had its way with Division I-AA Appalachian State or the one that crumbled under the onslaught of No. 4-ranked Southern California?

That's what we're here to find out today in a game that becomes something of an early Rorschach test for the Warriors.

Much as we might like to believe this team, as blessed as it is with returnees from last year, will pick right up where its 10-4 predecessor left off, each season and each team has its own personality.

For example, the 1999 Warriors were nothing like the 1998 or 2000 teams. And the 2001 and '02 squads likewise possessed very much their own character.

As for this edition, Robinson will only say, "They went to the Coliseum last week and didn't play up to their capability. I think they might have been trying too hard; (it was) too big of a game for them."

Perhaps. But in the Rebels (2-1) the Warriors get somebody their own size to pick on, as the odds suggest. After being a 23-point pick over Appalachian State and a three-touchdown underdog to USC, UH finds this game listed as a "pick 'em" on several betting lines.

By the time this one is over — and you've got to believe Robinson is right when he says it may go down to the final tick of four hours of football — there should be plenty of inkblot test results to mull over about the current team.

It is the final non-conference game before the two teams embark on their conference schedules, yet it shapes up as something more than a meeting of occasional foes.

With a crowd expected to number more than 32,000 and the possibility that the more vocal portion of them will be UH rooters, vacationers and transplants alike, it should make for the kind of atmosphere these teams have rarely seen against non-Bowl Championship Series opponents.

Throw a couple of former NFL coaches, Robinson and June Jones, into the mix and blend their clash of styles, and it figures to make for good theater in the desert.

But, ultimately, of course, it comes down to the players and the personality they establish for themselves as a team, which is what makes this game so intriguing.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.