Hawaii Preview

I think the defense will be better in 2011 despite the losses of Foster, Williams, and Aiyewa.

… As far as LP is concerned. Too bad as I had the “over” on that not happening until the EWU game.

If the D-line, especially Ta’amu, is on, I don’t expect Hawaii to put up much of an offense.

Years 1 and most of year 2 we were still trying to figure out things on defense Lear. The year before Holt arrived we were so slow on defense, couldn’t figure out how to shed blocks, and our tackling was just a dumpster fire.

From my perspective, we didn’t really begin to play better defense until the Ucla game late last season. You got a sense that the Ucla game was the moment when the defensive light came on for the entire defense. From there we went on a 4 game winning streak. Now don’t get me wrong, we are no where near where we want to be defensively, but I see dramatic improvement in all phases of defensive football. The key going forward is to build on the great things we did late last season and to improve in defensive areas where we struggled. It’s way too early under Holt to make those assumptions. Holt had a swiss cheese defense when he arrived and the best thing he could do is to scheme wise, try to make the holes a wee bit smaller. To close those gaps it takes time to develop talent and to bring in talent. That is the direction we are headed.

I think the fact that you have Polk and depth behind him. A pretty good amount of experience in the OLine mixed in with some talented young guys. And the emergence of the TE position. And the experienced and deep receiving corp, combined with what is very talented incoming class. The only real questions on offense might be depth at the offensive line. The QB position lacks depth too and experience but I have a feeling about Keith Price. I think John might have mentioned this earlier but many of us expect him to have a better college career than Jake Locker. That’s with the caveat that he has better talent around him.

The defense has a few linebacking questions and some depth issues but overall looks solid. Special teams should be better and the punting and kicking is excellent and has some depth. What is there not to like here? Especially in relation to what sounds like a Hawaii team that is seriously rebuilding?

“Warriors” have become a faceless mascot for schools who once had politically incorrect native american mascots.

… Jim Owens. Can we agree that Hawaii has performed poorly on the mainland since 1974, then?

…of going to games “at Husky Stadium”, keeping in mind that I saw my first game “live” late in life. 1989 was the first, it was against ASU and we had (Carey Conklin?, I’d look it up but I’m too lazy. Anyway worst loss at Husky Stadium live…well except for obviously any of our losses to certain NW rivals. Nevada, and it seemed to be a barometer of where Husky Football was headed.

Biggest first win that I saw on TV was the 1978 Rosebowl win against Michigan. That was amazing! I mean growing up as a kid I always knew the Huskies were the home team but I don’t think Husky Football started getting much TV exposure until later? Maybe one of you who followed it from earlier times can chime in and tell us about that. My dad always listened to Husky Football, while working in his “prized yard”, on the radio. His glory years were the Jim Owen’s Rosebowl victories. I was too young then to care about football, except for playing it of course! I sure with my dad would have taken me to a game or two in those days!

It’s become very popular to think that Sark is going to go hard and heavy on running the football. 1) because our running game has blossomed. 2) because we are breaking in a new QB. If our running game can control the ball and clock, I think we can drain a lot of time off the clock. The key is for our defense to do it’s job, win the battle on 3rd downs, especially going up against an uptempo offense like the run and shoot.