Sidelines
Nevada O just what
Hawaii D needsFIREWORKS. A shootout. Nonstop scoring, more passing, an offensive show, a June Jones-a-thon.
With Nevada's offense humming and Hawaii's defense reeling, tonight's game will force one team to outscore the other. We've been told to brace ourselves for a track meet. Get the calculators out. Whoever has the ball last wins.Not so fast. There's a voice of dissent to that assumption, and that voice belongs to Hawaii's sage split receiver, Justin Colbert.
"I'm not too convinced," Colbert says, "that we're going to be in a shootout."
Why? Because Colbert says this is where Hawaii's defense bounces back. Nevada spreads the field. Nevada throws the ball. This is what Hawaii's offense does. This is what the UH defense has practiced against every day for years.
Usually it's the other way around. The knock is that the run-and-shoot produces numbers and points and fans, but that it's hard for the guys on the other side of the ball to get ready for anything else. They don't face the right kind of personnel every week. Conventional wisdom is that Hawaii has trouble defensively against running teams, against power teams, against teams with a tight end, against teams -- see Boise State -- that can mix it up and do it all.
But Colbert says that here, now, is where it all pays off. This is perfect. Tonight against Nevada, the weakness is finally a strength. Nevada is walking into Hawaii's wheelhouse. This is what UH has been training for all this time.
It's an interesting theory, and for UH, this would be a good time for Colbert to be right. This game is bigger than it looked when we first scanned the schedule in the summertime. Nevada is better than we thought. Hawaii, we found out last week, isn't.
At least not yet. And if Hawaii is going to make a run at that bowl bid, it starts here.
A win, under this pressure, against this team, keeps hopes for a big season alive. Another loss would shed a whole new light on the rest of the year.
Let's look ahead. At Fresno State. San Jose State. At Rice. Cincinnati, Alabama. None of these games looks easy right now, and that's putting it nicely. Not unless we see something different tonight.
So no, Hawaii needs to make a stand here. It needs to decide what kind of team it wants to be.
Its defense needs to make a stand. The defense that looked so good before last week's disaster at Boise. Hawaii needs to push up the field, it needs to jump on the pass patterns, explode to the ball.
This is a big night for Hawaii's defense for a number of reasons. Chief among them that these guys are too good not to change games. Despite what we saw last week, this is still the strength of this team. Yes, Hawaii's offense is progressing, but slowly. Somebody needs to break out. Someone needs to add a spark.
At this point, if this is a shootout, can Hawaii outscore a good team?
Maybe. Maybe not.
You have to believe that sooner or later, that spark will come. It could come at any minute. It could come tonight. But we haven't seen it yet.
At this point a shootout is not good news for UH, for a number of reasons.
This is a big night for the UH defense. Stop Nevada and the season starts again. Colbert says this is perfect, and he would be the guy to know. He's gone against these guys over and over again. He's helped get them ready for this. He knows how they'll react.
After all, this is the defense that has faced a wide-open passing attack every summer, every spring. Every day.
Now here comes the big game, one that could change a season. For good or bad. Here comes a hot Nevada offense that likes to throw the ball. Here's a defense that badly needs to bounce back.
On a night in which UH needs to decide what kind of team it wants to be, Colbert says his guys are ready. It would be good timing, if this was the game they've been training for all these years.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com