In honor of Shannon Smith -- who drowned Saturday afternoon while saving the life of Hawaii head coach Fred vonAppen's youngest child -- the players took the day off.

"We want to do something for Shannon to honor his memory," vonAppen said after yesterday's meeting. "We'll return to practice with our conditioning drills on Wednesday at 6:45 in the morning.

"We'll then hold our first spring practice (tomorrow afternoon) from 3 to 6. I'm not sure when we'll make up the day we lost. We'll have to wait and see."

This week, the team will work every afternoon at Cooke Field in only shorts and helmets.

On Saturday, the practice is scheduled for 9-11 a.m.

Next Monday, the team will go in full pads the rest of the way through April 19. On that Saturday, vonAppen will hold a scrimmage, but it will not be an official spring game.

"We're a little thin at several positions to hold a spring game," vonAppen said. "We just can't afford to let anybody get hurt."

Center Shane Oliveira is the only player who won't see any time this spring. He is still slowed with a bad ankle he had operated on last December.

Tight end Gary Ellison said he might miss the first week to get his knee back in shape, but everyone else is ready to go.

"We're all having to study the playbook," Ellison said. "It's completely different from what we did last year offensively. But it's going to be OK."

Senior free safety Eddie Klaneski and his defensive teammates also have done a lot of studying in the off-season. They are switching from a base 4-3 to a 3-4.

"We're all ready to get started," Klaneski said. "But we also wanted to pay tribute to Shannon. I know everybody is going to try to go to the funeral.

"It's tough losing a teammate like that. I've been to Kauai before, but never to where he drowned. It's tough because you don't know what to say or do when something like this happens."