Hawaii Bowl ads
may now be obsolete

QUESTION: Was it a good idea or a bad idea for ESPN Plus to keep pounding home all those Hawaii Bowl advertisements throughout the telecast of Hawaii's 51-20 loss to UTEP on Saturday?

My answer? They could have stopped sometime in the third quarter.

Unless they had an idea that they were going to need more Hawaii Bowl advertising ...

» Yesterday's excuses: none. UH fans have heard a lot of if-if-if lately. But this time? No.

"Regardless of what you might think, UTEP is a good football team," June Jones said. "And we're not better than them, they're not better than us. You have to make plays."

That's the truth.

» Jones' road record in his first six years: 10-13 (and counting).

Bob Wagner's road record in his first six years: 9-12-1.

» I like how even the ESPN guys said that the Hawaii Bowl is good for the whole state.

» Mike Price did a great, great job of play-calling to get UTEP that field goal at the end of the first half to stretch the Miners' lead to 24-13.

"Did you see how it energized their whole team, the crowd, everybody?" Jones said.

It was masterful. But it also showed where Western Athletic Conference football has been these past few years. We, as spectators, should not be blown away by a coach who knows how to work the clock.

» Speaking of coaches and clock management, here comes San Jose State.

Hawaii rolls it up.

It's at Aloha Stadium.

It's San Jose State.

It's the Tulsa game all over again.

» OK. The Fake Punt. Let's do this Donald Rumsfeld style:

Was it a "what the hell are you thinking?" move? No question. Did it hurt UH and put Hawaii in a hole? Absolutely. Did it set a tone, the wrong one? You'd better believe it.

But did Hawaii get away with it?

Yeah.

You can argue that it's a symptom of something deeper (and you might have an argument), but examination of this solitary move itself has been way overblown. Coaches make moves, good and bad.

And if Jones is your coach, you know this is the kind of move he makes. If you accept the rest of the package, you live with this. I give him the mulligan as long as it doesn't lose the game.

It didn't.

» No, it didn't help, that's true.

» Jones made an interesting comment that "sometimes you can get away with (not making plays) at home."

I think that's true. UH has "gotten away with" a lot these past few years -- thanks to superior athletes, ill-prepared opponents, home-field advantage, etc. And UH hasn't had to be at its absolute best -- in coaching, playing (including penalties), preparing, maybe even recruiting -- in order to ring up impressive won-loss records.

Less than perfect was good enough.

But maybe not having been pushed is catching up to UH. And now the WAC is better, and the bar is raised.

» "Every game is the same," Jones said of this season. "Every game is the same. It's a toss-up."