Tuesday, October 8, 1996
Since this class entered school in 1992, the Aztecs have ripped the Rainbows four consecutive times by an average score of 46-19.
Hawaii hasn't knocked off San Diego State since 1989, and the Rainbows haven't won at Jack Murphy Stadium - not counting the Holiday Bowl victory over Illinois - since a 32-30 win in 1988.
"It would be a great victory for us to beat them over there," UH senior quarterback Glenn Freitas said. "For me personally, it would probably be the biggest victory of my football career.
"We know they're going to be feeling pretty confident and probably taking us lightly. So we might just go out there and surprise them in the first half.
"Hopefully, we can put some points on the board and they find themselves so far behind in the second half, they can't catch up."
That's pretty bold talk considering UH is 1-5 for the season and 0-3 in Western Athletic Conference play, but it typifies the mental makeup of the team entering the second half of the season.
Despite their struggles on the field, the Rainbows have been in every game but one. In their minds, an upset win over the Aztecs would get things rolling in the right direction.
"This game is the biggest one for me," senior fullback Tony Thomas said. "I want a lot of revenge. They've handled us pretty well, but this year we're looking for a change.
"The team wants to go out on a good note. That would get it started right there. I'm disappointed to hear Will Blackwell and George Jones probably won't play. We want to beat them when they're at their best."
Jones is out, pending an NCAA investigation, and Blackwell is gone because of a sprained knee. The wide receiver has played in only one game, but had 11 receptions and four touchdowns in San Diego State's win over California.
"That just means they'll go more to Az Hakim," senior safety Doe Henderson said. "He's good because he gets a lot of his yards after catching the football. This is a game a lot of us have been looking forward to. I'd like to go out with a win over them because of how badly they've beat us."
"I said I thought we didn't have enough time to prepare for them and that they've had plenty of time to prepare for us," vonAppen said after yesterday's practice.
"Apparently their athletic director (Rick Bay) asked us if we wanted to switch back from Friday to Saturday, but I thought it was best if we leave it as it is.
"I think they're a little upset at the cost of this entire thing, but it's too late for us to switch back to Delta like we had originally planned."
The cost of the proposed half-charter flight by Hawaiian Airlines is about $150,000. That's nearly $100,000 more than the Delta flight, a difference the San Diego State athletic department is expected to help pay.
So you can see why Bay was willing to explore the opportunity of switching the game back to Saturday now that the San Diego Padres are out of the major-league playoffs.
In the conference call, vonAppen pointedly said that he admired Air Force for taking a hard-line stance of moving last Saturday's scheduled game to the end of the season.
But when that happened, it filled the only open date Hawaii and San Diego State had in common. That forced the Friday move, something vonAppen abhors.
"If it were my decision and my decision alone, I would have taken a much harder line on it," vonAppen said. "How do we stand to benefit from this thing? We don't. And we're playing a superior football team on paper, and probably on the field. So it's hardly fair in that sense of the word.
"I'm not faulting San Diego State. They were locked in, too. It's just an unfortunate thing that we'll just have to play through."