Monday, November 9, 1998
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Hawaii's Chad Shrout sits on the bench after shanking
his second punt Saturday.
VonAppen not
ready to quit
Hawaii's head coach is still trying
By Paul Arnett
to find a way to win this season
Star-BulletinSo far, Fred vonAppen hasn't pulled any "For Sale" signs out of his front yard or had any telephone messages recommending where he can go.
The third-year head coach for Hawaii spent most of yesterday reviewing film of Fresno State as he prepares the winless Rainbows for their final road trip of the season.
He jokingly said he won't campaign for a charter flight in what could be his last road game as the Rainbows' head coach. VonAppen won't speculate whether this will be his final season, but he concedes that the wolves aren't too far from his front door.
"I'm sure there are a lot of people who think we should be fired as a staff," vonAppen said. "There's frustration at every turn. Our fans are frustrated. Our players are doing everything they can to keep believing in us and in themselves.
"And let me tell you, we've talked about it at length among ourselves. Of what's wrong and how we can fix it. Or can it be fixed? But as long as we're under contract, we're not going to quit.
"If they're ready to pull the plug, then come and tell us because we're going to be right in here working to get better. Hopefully we'll squeak out a win or two out of these last three games or people are going to look at us like we're some kind of a joke."
UH president Kenneth Mortimer continues to show his support. He comes to the UH locker room and visits with vonAppen before every home game.
Much like everyone else at Aloha Stadium Saturday night, he must have thought Hawaii's quick 14-0 advantage would result in the first victory of the season. But he would have thought wrong.
Hawaii took a game lead on idle Western Athletic Conference member Nevada-Las Vegas for the nation's longest losing streak after a disappointing 45-17 defeat to San Jose State.
It was the Rainbows' 15 consecutive loss, dating back nearly 400 days, when they beat Fresno State. The Rainbows travel to Bulldog Stadium this weekend where they will try to end a 23-game WAC road losing streak dating back to 1992.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Hawaii's James Polk can't prevent San Jose State's
Waking Bailey from holding on to this touchdown pass,
which gave the Spartans a 20-17 lead.
"At this point in the season we need to concern ourselves with trying to win and then deal with all the off-the-field stuff later," said vonAppen, who still has two years left on his contract. "Our main problem with San Jose State is we gave up four touchdowns in about nine minutes of the third quarter."I don't know what it is, but we don't come out of the locker room ready to play after intermission. We seem a half-step slow and that's all it takes to get your clock cleaned. I don't know what the answers are. All I know is you have to go back at it and approach the next game like any other.
"I'm sure Fresno State is going to have a lot of incentive. They were the only WAC team we beat last year. It also knocked them out of a possible bowl bid, so it doesn't get any easier from here."
In fact, this may be the toughest stretch of games on the schedule. Hawaii not only ends its WAC season at Fresno State, but must return home to play Big Ten teams Northwestern and Michigan on back-to-back weekends.
At this point, it would seem the Rainbows are destined to lose their last three games and wind up tying an NCAA record for futility -- an 0-12 season.
"That's the part that's hardest to take," quarterback Dan Robinson said. "You don't want to be considered the worst team in America. And right now, we only have three games left to change all that."
VonAppen still believes the biggest changes have to come away from the field. He is concerned with the stringent athletic requirements that make it difficult to not only transfer junior college credits from the mainland, but allow local boys in as partial academic qualifiers.
Many longtime observers of the program trace Hawaii's problems to the decision reached by former athletic director Stan Sheriff in 1993 not to take any more proposition athletes.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Hawaii wide receiver Eleu Kane pulls in a touchdown pass
from Dan Robinson, giving the Rainbows an early 14-0 lead
over San Jose State in Saturday night's WAC game at Aloha
Stadium. SJSU won, 45-17.
Mortimer has tried to work with vonAppen in this area, but more needs to be done to make sure the Rainbows are on equal recruiting footing with the other teams in the WAC."I'm not interested in bringing in a bunch of guys who will flunk out after one year," vonAppen said. "We've worked hard to recruit quality kids.
"But I'd like to give local partial qualifiers a chance to prove themselves in the classroom. If they do well that first semester, then I think they should be allowed on the team in the spring."
VonAppen also said fund-raising efforts need to be on a higher scale. It's one thing to have banquets and golf tournaments that generate thousands of dollars, but quite another to find a few donors or corporate sponsors willing to give millions to a struggling program.
"You can't have all your money being tied to ticket sales," vonAppen said. "There are plenty of other areas that need to be addressed. This new credit-card deal and boutique are good ideas.
"But we're still trying to get a grass practice field of our own. How many Division I teams have to even worry about that? I don't really want to dwell on those things right now because we need to stay focused on winning.
"Regardless of what happens, some changes have to be made in order for this thing to move forward. Things can't stay the same or they die."
There were a couple of sideline incidents caught on film that Hawaii head coach Fred vonAppen wasn't even aware of after Saturday's 45-17 loss to San Jose State. Sideline spat
'No big thing'When asked what was going on among linebackers Chris Garnier and Mark Mollner, and assistant coach Troy Thomas, vonAppen had to ask Garnier before making a comment.
"I didn't know anything about it, but Chris said it wasn't that big of a deal," vonAppen said. "I'll let him tell it and leave it at that."
Garnier said that he and Mollner got into an argument about a certain defense that was supposed to be called by Mollner.
"When we got to the sideline, Thomas asked him why he didn't call the strength to the right side," Garnier said. "Mark said that Chris was lined up on the wrong side.
"I told him not to blame it on me because he was the one who was supposed to make the call. Mark put his hand on me like, 'No. No.'
"And I told him that wasn't my job and to get his hand off me. So Coach Thomas got into Mark's ass and told him it was his fault. No big thing."
UH quarterback Dan Robinson also was shown exchanging words with assistant Tim Green after he was taken out in the first quarter for Bronson Liana.
"We were going good and I didn't understand why I was out," Robinson said. "But that's coach's call, not mine."
QB 'controversy?'
Hawaii quarterback Dan Robinson is too good of a foot soldier to question the general, but he obviously didn't take too kindly to being yanked.
Rainbows head coach Fred vonAppen would later say Bronson Liana being inserted into the lineup on the fourth series was part of the plan, but perhaps it should have been scrapped after Robinson led Hawaii to a quick 14-0 lead.
"You never want to be taken out of the ballgame, but that's the coach's call," Robinson said. "I'm just there to play and do what they ask me to do."
VonAppen didn't understand what the fuss was about concerning the Robinson-Liana switch, and defended the decision.
"We've been working on that all week," vonAppen said. "That didn't cost us the game."
Tharp over 100
"I just wish my contributions were helping us win," Tharp said. "We got off to a good start, but we just don't understand that you have to play like that for 60 minutes, not 15. It's very frustrating."
Tharp raised his season rushing total to 583 yards in nine games. He needs 214 yards to eclipse his freshman total of 796. In 1997, he was named the Pacific Division's newcomer of the year.
Defense struggling
"What bothered me is it looked like we almost quit out there in the second half," vonAppen said. "Our defense hasn't played well lately, which is a big concern. We've had injuries, but people don't want to hear about those."
Grind this
Injury report
By Paul Arnett, Star-Bulletin
WHO'S NEXT?
Conference Standings
Pacific Division
W L Pct. W L Pct. Brigham Young 5 1 .833 7 3 .700 San Diego State 5 1 .833 5 4 .556 Utah 4 2 .667 6 3 .667 San Jose State 3 3 .500 4 6 .400 Fresno State 3 3 .500 3 6 .333 Texas-El Paso 3 3 .500 3 6 .333 New Mexico 1 6 .143 3 7 .300 Hawaii 0 7 .000 0 9 .000Mountain Division
W L Pct. W L Pct. Wyoming 6 0 1.000 8 1 .889 Air Force 5 1 .833 8 1 .889 Rice 4 2 .667 4 5 .444 Colorado State 4 3 .571 7 4 .636 Southern Methodist 4 3 .571 4 6 .400 Texas Christian 2 4 .333 4 5 .444 Tulsa 1 5 .167 3 6 .333 Nevada-Las Vegas 0 6 .000 0 9 .000Saturday's games
Air Force at Wyoming, 9 a.m.Colorado State at SMU, 10 a.m.
TCU at Tulsa, 10 a.m.
Nevada-Las Vegas at Rice, 10 a.m.
Utah at New Mexico, 10 a.m.
Hawaii at Fresno State, 11 a.m.
Brigham Young at Texas-El Paso, noon
San Diego State at San Jose State, 4 p.m.
Last Saturday's results
Air Force 35 Army 7 Brigham Young 46 New Mexico 21 Southern Methodist 33 Tulsa 3 Rice 14 Texas Christian 12 Utah 34 Texas-El Paso 27 San Diego State 10 Fresno State 0 Wyoming 27 Colorado State 19 San Jose State 45 Hawaii 17UH season statistics
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS / THE LEADERS
Rushing
Car Yards Avg. TD Long Charles Tharp 124 583 4.7 1 58 Derek Zoller 42 139 3.3 1 12 Avion Weaver 27 100 3.7 0 11 Bronson Liana 39 79 2.0 0 14 Fred Lau 9 68 7.6 0 23 Calvin Mims 13 43 3.3 0 8 Robert Grant 10 35 3.5 0 13 Afatia Thompson 9 23 2.6 0 10
Att Comp Yards Int TD Dan Robinson 229 100 1,401 6 9 Bronson Liana 19 5 37 2 0 Josh Skinner 9 1 19 1 0
Rec Yards TD Long Wesley Morris 36 494 4 52 Dwight Carter 22 320 3 69 Eleu Kane 13 269 1 55 Charles Tharp 9 69 0 36 Davey deLaura 8 107 0 39 Craig Stutzman 5 71 0 28 Mike Iosua 3 31 0 19 Derek Zoller 3 31 1 23 Calvin Mims 1 19 0 19 Avion Weaver 1 17 0 17 Robert Grant 1 9 0 9 Jimmy McClain 1 7 0 7 Afatia Thompson 1 5 0 5 Nassor Anderson 1 4 0 4 Robert Kemfort 1 4 0 4
TD XP 2XP SAF FG Pts Chad Shrout 0 7 0 0 6-13 25 Wesley Morris 4 0 0 0 0 24 Dwight Carter 3 0 0 0 0 18 Derek Zoller 2 0 0 0 0 12 Kamuela Cobb-Adams 1 0 0 0 0 6 Eleu Kane 1 0 0 0 0 6 Charles Tharp 1 0 0 0 0 6 Chris Pinkney 0 0 1 0 0 2
No. Yards Avg. Long Chad Shrout 63 2,396 38.0 62
Punts Kickoffs No. Yds. Lg No. Yds. Lg Daniel Ho-Ching 3 54 42 0 0 0 Charles Tharp 11 125 22 3 46 20 James Polk 2 17 10 0 0 0 Eleu Kane 5 32 21 9 168 28 Dwight Carter 6 30 14 3 64 23 Wesley Morris 0 0 0 14 350 65 Robert Grant 0 0 0 7 168 44 Robert Kemfort 0 0 0 2 11 8
Una Ast Total Loss Sack Matt Paul 36 35 71 1 0 Anthony Smith 41 30 71 0 0 Tony Tuioti 26 19 45 2 0 Quincy LeJay 30 13 43 0 0 Stephen Gonzales 19 22 41 1 1 Jeff Ulbrich 25 13 38 4 1 Donnell Williams 24 14 38 0 0 Kamuela Cobb-Adams 18 12 30 2 1 Phil Austin 21 9 30 1 1 Daniel Ho-Ching 19 8 27 1 0 Mark Mollner 13 13 26 0 1 Houdini Jackson 15 11 26 2 3 Ben Bright 14 11 25 1 2 Joaquin Avila 11 12 23 2 0 Joseph Correia 11 12 23 2 0 Miles Garner 15 6 21 4 0 Matt Elam 13 5 18 2 1 James Polk 10 8 18 0 0 Chris Garnier 14 3 17 0 0
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
