By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

When this football season started, there was a lot said about University of Hawai'i quarterback Tim Chang's assault on Ty Detmer's NCAA career passing yardage record.

Less well known was that he was on an even faster track toward breaking the NCAA record for career interceptions after being picked off 67 times in 40 games.

The fact that Mark Hermann's 24-year-old record of 73 interceptions at Purdue is still standing and could be around a while longer underlines just how much improved Chang's accuracy has been through the first two games: No interceptions in 116 passing attempts.

Overall, dating to the third quarter of the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, Chang has gone 138 passes without being picked off, a personal record in his five seasons at UH, while throwing eight touchdown passes.

Chang's improved marksmanship — he is also completing 62 percent of his passes this season despite what coaches say have been 15 dropped passes — is significant for somebody who had been completing 56 percent of his passes and been intercepted, on average, once every 27.4 pass attempts coming into 2004.

Chang's improvement is at once both one of the bright spots and head-scratching curiosities of an 0-2 Warrior start. If you'd told most UH fans and, indeed even coaches, that the heretofore interception-prone Chang would be without a pick and the Warriors without a turnover of any kind through two games, the expectation would have been a 2-0 start.

Instead, here they are 0-2 entering Saturday's Western Athletic Conference home opener with Tulsa and not alone in wondering what gives.

Chang's accuracy, however, looks to be something more than your blue-moon happenstance. With the exception of a Florida Atlantic defender dropping what should have been an interception in the season opener, Chang really hasn't been in much danger of being picked off.

"There is always a little bit of that, fortune, involved, but for the most part it is all Timmy," said quarterbacks coach Dan Morrison. "It is by design and commitment. He's working real hard at focusing, making good decisions and staying within the framework of what we're doing. He's being much more diligent in his decision-making process. A good part of that is maturity, growing up and working hard to do everything right he can out there."

One of the lessons Chang has drawn upon and one of the tapes he's watched with a discerning eye is that of last year's 27-16 loss at Tulsa, where he was held without a touchdown for the only time in the last 25 games when he both started and finished a contest.

For Chang, the record he's avoided is saying more about him than the record he is fast closing in on.

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