HONOLULU — It may not improve University of Hawaii football coach Norm Chow’s Q rating, and it may not fill up the stands at Aloha Stadium as quickly as athletic director Ben Jay would like — but the Rainbow Warriors appear to have developed their 2014 identity:
It’s called, “Just win, baby.”
With a nod toward former Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, this year’s UH team has established itself so far to be gritty if not pretty, resourceful if not innovative, scrappy but not superb.
Will that be good enough to earn three, four or even five more victories this season? Maybe so. But even if it is, will that style of football bring the fans back to Aloha Stadium? That is another question, which suddenly makes Jay’s decision to stick with Chow even tougher and more complicated than it was before.
Until last Saturday’s 27-24 home victory over Northern Iowa, people just wanted the Rainbow Warriors to win. They did — just barely — but it was clear by the boos late in the game that many fans also are not happy with what they considered to be “boring football,” even if it resulted in a victory.
Late in the fourth quarter, with Hawaii clinging to a 24-17 lead, Chow obviously played it conservative and stuck to basic running plays in order to milk the clock and set up Tyler Hadden’s 37-yard field goal that made it 27-17 with 3:19 remaining. A chorus of “boos” followed almost every running play on that possession, and it happened again after the Rainbow Warriors recovered the onside kick following a Northern Iowa touchdown that closed the gap to 27-24 with 1:56 on the clock.
Chow again played it by-the-book conservatively, running up the middle with fullback Steven Lakalaka. It worked, as the Panthers were forced to call timeouts after the first two plays — each of which was followed by “Booo!” — and then Jeremy Higgins connected with tight end Justin Vele for a clutch 18-yard gain and a first down.
UH then ran off-tackle again, and this time Lakalaka fumbled, but it was recovered by tight end Harold Moleni and the Rainbow Warriors were able to run out the clock on the next two plays.
One can only wonder how loud that chorus of boos would have gotten had Hadden missed the field goal — or worse, if Northern Iowa recovered Lakalaka’s fumble and converted it into a game-winning touchdown or game-tying field goal in the closing seconds.
Chow said he and his staff were simply trying to preserve the victory, and in the end, that is exactly what they did.
But they also did not win many style points, and some fans obviously were not satisfied.
Like it or not, this appears to be the 2014 team’s formula for the remainder of the schedule: Play solid defense, use punter Scott Harding’s amazing abilities to pin the other team deep, control the clock with time-consuming-if-not-productive possessions, keep the score close and try to pull it out at the end.
Of course, everybody — including Chow — would love to jump out to quick 21-0 leads and light up the scoreboard with a dazzling array of big plays. But this team’s talent and personnel seem more likely to produce the first scenario as opposed to the second.
Sophomore quarterback Ikaika Woolsey is very athletic and has a strong arm, but he is not consistently accurate and does not have many big playmakers surrounding him. The receiving corps is decent and was finally able to get open several times last Saturday, but it lacks deep speed, elusiveness and great hands. At least four or five of Woolsey’s incompletions were dropped.
Lakalaka — another sophomore — is a serviceable replacement for injured Joey Iosefa, but is not quite yet the game-changer Iosefa can be. He also is nursing a slight injury, so his productivity last Saturday (32 carries, 124 yards, one touchdown) is about as much as we can expect until he is 100 percent healthy.
Despite the critics, Hawaii’s offense did show flashes of big-play capability against Northern Iowa, such as a 52-yard pass from Woolsey to Harding, a 50-yarder from Woolsey to Marcus Kemp, Lakalaka’s 30-yard touchdown run and Woolsey’s 15-yard TD pass to Moleni.
Those type of plays — along with a 17-yard run by redshirt freshman Keelan Ewaliko on a reverse — were encouraging and too few and far in between in the first two games. The Rainbow Warriors will need even more of them this Saturday at Colorado.
But as far as turning into an offensive juggernaut overnight or becoming a team that races out to big leads at halftime and keeps the foot on the offensive pedal in the second — well, that is not likely to happen anytime soon.
If anything, we are more likely to see the kind of football we saw last Saturday — defensive, mostly conservative, emphasis on field position, keep the score close and try to win at the end. Hopefully for UH, it will be enough to leave Boulder, Colo., with another victory.
And with a bye week after, followed by another road game at Rice, Jay can then worry about whether it’s exciting enough for the fans later.