Posted on: Sunday, September 5, 2004

Hawai'i didn't see this coming

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

There was a blowout at Aloha Stadium last night, all right, but not the kind anybody on this side of the Florida panhandle was expecting.

No, this one consisted of Florida Atlantic University players blowing kisses to their small but fervent faithful in the end zone stands while, all around them, humid Halawa was stunned to eerie silence.

In the end — and it came at 4:11 a.m. Eastern time when the last-gasp Warriors' pass was broken up — this was a decided underdog blowing off what had become, by kickoff, a 22-point betting line to shock Hawai'i in overtime, 35-28.

FAU, a team that had talked of this game as "our bowl," celebrated it like one, rolling around the FieldTurf, posing for pictures at midfield and howling at the moon. Suddenly, Hurricane Frances was a zillion miles away and the Owls, who had come 4,862 miles, had found paradise in more ways than one.

It was a far better place than where UH finds itself this morning. When it comes to UH history, this was a shocker for the ages, dwarfing the loss to Portland State in 2000 that had been the Warriors' only other loss to a non-I-A team since 1976.

As such, an opener that was supposed to have kicked off a season of promise for the Warriors and begun the final lap of the march to the NCAA career passing record for quarterback Tim Chang, instead turned into a sucker punch to the midsection.

Rather than answering important questions for the Warriors, this setback added to them in abundance.

Now, coming as it does before an open date on the schedule, the Warriors have until Sept. 18 when they play at Rice — a game that has taken on much greater degree of difficulty — to wrestle not only the pain of the defeat but the whys and hows of this beyond-baffling setback.

Time enough to replay, along with 30,000 of their closest followers, the dropped passes, botched tackles and missed opportunities that haunt them and reflect on why they even scheduled this I-A wolf in I-AA sheep's clothing in the first place.

If the Owls, and the estimated $175,000 price tag that brought them here, were figured for a setup, then somebody forgot to let FAU in on the script.

If anybody saw this coming, it was only the dapper Howard Schnellenberger, the FAU coach attired in a suit and tie on the sideline, and those who surrounded him. For it was the Owls, who, despite two first quarter interceptions that should have been the beginning of the end, stuck around to make this a game, all right. Their game on their night.

The Warriors never succeeded in putting their offense together for more than one series or in taking the Owls out of theirs.

In the end there was a blowout at Aloha Stadium, but it was a I-AA team blowing off the stigma of its divisional classification with a mighty bang that will not be soon forgotten at either end of six time zones.

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