IN Texas, the most popular sport after football is spring football. It’s spring but UH football’s
still the thingFans here aren't that crazy about football, but it's close. Football's still the most followed sport in Hawaii. You can imagine how nuts this town would get if the University of Hawaii football Rainbows can regain their winning ways.
Why, spring football might even pack 'em in at Cooke Field.
Right now, it's mostly a silent spring. With 27 seniors gone from last year's team, it was unusually quieter. There were only 60 players or so going through the first day of spring practice yesterday.
Twenty-four recruits -- many of them highly regarded -- and the usual suspects, or walk-ons, will fill out the rest of the team in the fall.
One of these years, the NCAA will do away with spring football entirely. Then it'll be a really silent spring for football players.
For now, though, it's a good opportunity for coaches to spend more time getting the developmental work done with players who don't get much attention during the season.
More so at UH now that coach Fred vonAppen has changed offensive coordinators for the third consecutive year.
Don Lindsey, who had been the defensive coordinator for two years, moves to the other side of the ball. Taking over for Lindsey is Tom Williams, who had coached the Rainbows' inside linebackers.
So introductions were needed all around. And even a program with numbers wasn't helpful.
STAR running back Charles Tharp, who blazed on the scene as a true freshman last year while wearing No. 25, now has his favorite number -- 21. Last year's No. 21 was pretty good, if you remember. But with Eddie Klaneski gone, Tharp had first dibs.
Avion Weaver, who wore No. 33, is now No. 20, although why he wanted that number is beyond me. Rainbow fans can still see No. 20 -- Quincy Jacobs -- fumbling the ball at the goal line last year at Las Vegas.
Adrian Klemm's number change -- from 63 to 80 -- was necessitated by his move from right tackle to tight end.
Then there's Micah Kroeger, who had no number at all. He wore a plain white jersey with rainbow trim on the sleeves. Still, at 6-foot-6, he was hard to miss.
The most interesting story line about the Rainbows' spring this year is the change in coordinators.
It's quite a step up for Williams, who's well thought of as head-coach material some day.
Williams plans on picking Lindsey's brain. "I told him, I hope his door is never locked. He said I can utilize him as a resource," Williams said.
FOR Lindsey, it's a startling career switch. I'm sure his good friend, Bill Curry, his former boss at Georgia Tech, would be shocked to learn that Lindsey's now motivating players to move the football instead of stopping it.
"Don Lindsey's the best defensive coordinator in the country," Curry exclaimed during the ESPN telecast of Hawaii's game with Notre Dame last fall. Lindsey made Curry look good as the Rainbow defense bottled up the Fighting Irish until the final minute.
Now, he's the offensive coordinator. Only in Hawaii.
Like a good trooper, Lindsey, is going to do what his boss tells him. Rest assured, he'll do his best.
"Football's football. It doesn't have anything to do with being on the offensive side of the ball or the defensive," Lindsey said. "It's being a teacher and a coach. Coach (Bear) Bryant once told me, 'a good football coach can coach anything.' "
He's already thinking like an offensive coordinator. Spying No. 22 in green across the field, Lindsey wondered if vonAppen would let linebacker Yaphet Warren, the University of Idaho transfer, join the offense as a running back.
"He can play running back, wide receiver. He's a hell of an athlete," Lindsey said.