Those never-say-die, never-say boring Warriors
Friday - October 31, 2008
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Del.icio.usYou can’t deny the 2008 edition of Warrior football is hugely entertaining to watch but, man, are they tough on the ticker.
The Nevada game was a tale of two halves. The first half featured an anemic UH offense that produced a mere 42 yards of offense. Neither of the platoon quarterbacks, Inoke Funaki or Tyler Graunke, looked sharp. Hawaii seemed unable to either run or throw the football.
After an emotional halftime talk by head coach Greg McMackin, the Warriors called on third string QB Greg Alexander, who marches his team up and down the field and put up Brennanesque numbers, completing17 of 22 passes for 202 yards and 2 TDs.Malcolm Lane and Michael Washington put up their best performance in a Hawaii uniform,and the Warriors win by posting their largest point total of the season.
The defense scored a touchdown, the turnover battle was even and the special teams produced terrific returns while allowing few yards to Nevada.
And let’s not overlook punter Tim Grasso, who pinned the Wolfpack on the 1 , 2 and 5 yard lines.
It was a great team win that propels the Warriors to one of its stated team goals: making and winning a bowl game. Hawaii needs to win three of its final five games to get the invite to the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl.
While it won’t be easy - easy doesn’t appear part of the plan for this group - it is possible, even probable, if they can continue to improve the rest of the way.
And they’ll be challenged by the longest road trip in college football - away from home for nine days with back-to-back road games at Utah State and New Mexico State.
There has been one feature with this team that serves them extremely well - they play their tails off until the final whistle of every game. When you do that, good things will happen. * It still may be too early to get a good read on the national championship picture, but it’s clear that if Texas and Alabama win out they’ll be in the title game.
Texas may have its toughest remaining game this Saturday at Texas Tech. The only other stumbling block would seem to be the Big 12 championship game - most likely against a Missouri team that would be looking to avenge a 56-31 spanking by the Longhorns two weeks ago.
This is where conference championship games can cause trouble. Designed for an easy payday, a loss by the top-rated team in the conference title game can take that conference right out of the nation’s championship games.
I think the team most likely to be in the title game is Penn State. They have Iowa on the road and home games against Indiana and Michigan State, and they don’t have to play a conference championship game. It would be hard to root against Joe Pa in that case.He would be the first octogenarian to win a national title. You couldn’t script that.
Just for laughs, here’s a prediction: Both Texas and Alabama lose and Penn State plays either Florida or Oklahoma in the national championship game. And the best thing about that forecast in this crazy college football season is I might have to completely change it next week!
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