A 2-0 record, when many thought the Hawaii football team would be 0-2, has drawn attention and expectations in equal measure.
With two impressive victories over Colorado State and Navy, and perhaps aided by a couple of national TV appearances, UH garnered some votes in the Associated Press and Coaches Top 25 Polls.
UH has three points in the AP and four in the Coaches. If there were expanded rankings, that’d put UH tied for 39th in the AP poll and tied for 44th in the Coaches Poll. Of course, rankings are not officially recognized beyond the top 25.
The last time the Rainbow Warriors were officially ranked was late in the 2010 season under Greg McMackin. UH was ranked 24th in the AP poll and 25th in the Coaches poll after beating UNLV at home in a nonconference game, 59-21. The Warriors tied for the WAC championship that year at 7-1, but went on the lose to Tulsa in the Hawaii Bowl, 62-35.
Heading into Saturday’s home game against Rice (1-1), UH players are suddenly having to manage the shift in team perception from the exterior — but, according to two with prominent roles, not much has changed on the interior.
UH is favored by 17.5 points, after being underdogs by that amount at certain points leading up to the games against Colorado State and Navy.
“We can never change our mind-set,” senior linebacker and co-captain Jahlani Tavai said. “Once we accept the fact that we’re favored, a lot of the boys will feel lackadaisical. We can’t have that as a unit, or a defense in general. So we have to play with the underdog mind-set, that we’re coming out there with a chip on our shoulder, ready to bang. So, of course it’s still early, only Week 3, so we always have to have that mentality that we have that chip on our shoulder.”
Then Tavai raised a salient point. UH was 2-0 last year before losing nine of its next 10 to finish 3-9.
“We’ve been in this position before, where we’ve won our first two games and everything fell down last year,” he said. “We have to learn from that mistake last year, and just play as if it’s just another game and as if we’re underdogs.”
Third-year sophomore running back Fred Holly III has enjoyed a breakout role to go with UH’s so-far-promising season. He’s had 16 and 17 carries in the first two games for 150 yards and his first career touchdown. Last season, he appeared in two games and rushed for a total of 27 yards.
“I’ll say for the most part, we prepared for it, honestly,” Holly said. “Personally, I’m not really too overwhelmed because that’s what we expected. In the offseason, these are the type of things that we worked towards. Perfect seasons. That’s why we worked so hard in the offseason. I feel like some of the younger guys on the team are maybe a little bit surprised, because a lot of the guys just got in, and we got transfers that don’t know how we do things around here. But, it definitely changed a lot. We have a good understanding of what winning looks like now. We’re comfortable with it.”
But not comfortable, period. Holly appreciates that another sudden reversal of fortune is possible.
“We’re still looking at it the same way,” he said. “We don’t want to take anybody lightly and we’re going to attack it as if we’re the underdog still, because at any given day, anybody can beat you. So we’re going to come out there and give 120 percent, just like (if) they would’ve (predicted) that we’d lose by two touchdowns from this team. So we’re going to attack it like that.”
As for the matter of receiving votes …
“You shut it out,” Tavai said. “Like I said, it’s only Week 3. So, you can easily lose those votes within the next week. We just have to keep that underdog mind-set, because once we get big-headed, that’s when everything falls apart.”
Said Holly: “I did actually hear about that. It was pretty exciting, but again, how I said, we set some high standards in the offseason. So, I mean, now that we’re making strides towards these goals, it’s no surprise. But then again, you’ll still have that excitement inside.”