(no subject)
After spending the week in Houston (which I guess means the 'Bows didn't get their first choice of where to spend a week), UH played in the dry hotness that is Las Vegas. UNLV is in Conference Mountain West, which is better known as the Traitorous Eight because the conference was founded by former members of Hawaii's own WAC, including UNLV. They seceded presumably because they thought they'd never get taken seriously in the WAC, which is funny now because in the new BCS era, they are still considered a second-tier conference compared to the PAC-10.
This scenario has yielded a double-edged sword for Hawai'i. The desertion of teams like BYU, Colorado State, Utah and Air Force took with it a huge amount of national exposure for the WAC, leaving the conference with an amalgam of weird, almost-familiar-sounding schools like Louisiana TECH, California State University FRESNO, Utah STATE University. As such, being in the WAC is not especially prestigious. However, UH's year-to-year standing within the conference has unsurprisingly improved since the big schools left in the late '90s. This also coincided with the hiring of a competent coach who didn't run the option on EVERY SINGLE PLAY, but it isn't hard to imagine UH finding itself more in the pack with more San Diego State's and fewer Idahos on the schedule. And if you can put up 2 or 3 loss seasons on a regular basis, sometimes people forget that you play random teams. It also helps when you create an exclusivity agreement with a Bowl game that is played in your home stadium.
Anyway, that not-so-brief history of Hawaii's relationship with the Mountain West Conference was just prelude to what turned out to be a sort of anticlimactic game, but in a good way. Colt Brennan had an "off" day, physically taking the football into the end zone himself three times. This was a departure from his usual experimentation in the field of quantum teleportation, delivering the ball into the arms of his receiver without the ball occupying any space in between - a phenomenon observed only in electrons and footballs thrown by Colt Brennan. He did perform that feat twice though just to please the crowd, which included about 100 Brennan family members.
It all added up to a 49-14 UH win, making them 3-0 on the season for the first time since 1992, which of course has been the previous high-water mark for UH Football glory.
UNLV has a couple of Great Athlete Name contenders, like Rocky Hinds and Quinton Pointer, but none that figured in the game on Saturday. The closest is Casey Flair, who rushed for negative one yard.
Next for Hawai'i is Charleston Southern, from Division I-AA. I doubt I-AA's newfound notoriety this season will rub off on Charleston Southern, so Hawai'i might have to pile on in this one, even though I don't approve of that practice. If there's a chance at a BCS game on the line this year, I don't want Hawaii's chances to be spoiled because some voters think failing to crush a I-AA team by 70 points is proof of weakness. Actually, I guess I'd be happy if they could just take control of the game early and put in the back-ups. I heard Colt twisted his ankle while "screwing around" before Saturday's game and has been gimping about since then. Stuff like that makes me nervous. What makes me un-nervous is reading him say stuff like, "They'd have to cut my leg off for me not to come out and play."
Note to Colt, however: Please do not put yourself in any leg-cutting-off situations between now and next week, as a way to test your resolve. That means no bear traps, no slowly-lowering-door booby traps, no chainsaw juggling.
This scenario has yielded a double-edged sword for Hawai'i. The desertion of teams like BYU, Colorado State, Utah and Air Force took with it a huge amount of national exposure for the WAC, leaving the conference with an amalgam of weird, almost-familiar-sounding schools like Louisiana TECH, California State University FRESNO, Utah STATE University. As such, being in the WAC is not especially prestigious. However, UH's year-to-year standing within the conference has unsurprisingly improved since the big schools left in the late '90s. This also coincided with the hiring of a competent coach who didn't run the option on EVERY SINGLE PLAY, but it isn't hard to imagine UH finding itself more in the pack with more San Diego State's and fewer Idahos on the schedule. And if you can put up 2 or 3 loss seasons on a regular basis, sometimes people forget that you play random teams. It also helps when you create an exclusivity agreement with a Bowl game that is played in your home stadium.
Anyway, that not-so-brief history of Hawaii's relationship with the Mountain West Conference was just prelude to what turned out to be a sort of anticlimactic game, but in a good way. Colt Brennan had an "off" day, physically taking the football into the end zone himself three times. This was a departure from his usual experimentation in the field of quantum teleportation, delivering the ball into the arms of his receiver without the ball occupying any space in between - a phenomenon observed only in electrons and footballs thrown by Colt Brennan. He did perform that feat twice though just to please the crowd, which included about 100 Brennan family members.
It all added up to a 49-14 UH win, making them 3-0 on the season for the first time since 1992, which of course has been the previous high-water mark for UH Football glory.
UNLV has a couple of Great Athlete Name contenders, like Rocky Hinds and Quinton Pointer, but none that figured in the game on Saturday. The closest is Casey Flair, who rushed for negative one yard.
Next for Hawai'i is Charleston Southern, from Division I-AA. I doubt I-AA's newfound notoriety this season will rub off on Charleston Southern, so Hawai'i might have to pile on in this one, even though I don't approve of that practice. If there's a chance at a BCS game on the line this year, I don't want Hawaii's chances to be spoiled because some voters think failing to crush a I-AA team by 70 points is proof of weakness. Actually, I guess I'd be happy if they could just take control of the game early and put in the back-ups. I heard Colt twisted his ankle while "screwing around" before Saturday's game and has been gimping about since then. Stuff like that makes me nervous. What makes me un-nervous is reading him say stuff like, "They'd have to cut my leg off for me not to come out and play."
Note to Colt, however: Please do not put yourself in any leg-cutting-off situations between now and next week, as a way to test your resolve. That means no bear traps, no slowly-lowering-door booby traps, no chainsaw juggling.