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Sidelines
Kalani Simpson
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This scheduling fiasco story should have been put to rest already
IT never ends. Of course it doesn't. So the latest deadline was in fact not a deadline, just like all the previous "deadlines" weren't deadlines. But I seem to recall this time Herman Frazier seemed to be pretty firm in his conviction that yesterday would be the day the final 2007 UH football schedule would be announced. (Then again, sitting in front of a legislative panel tends to do that to a person.)
How does a guy who hits the "snooze" button this often ever get to work on time?
OK. So the schedule issue is still alive. Of course it's still alive. Give Frazier this -- he's not giving up yet.
Do you believe in miracles?
Good. Because that's pretty much what it might take.
At this point, UH is so desperate and offering so much, does a 13th game even make sense? Financially, while the extra game was created in part to help Hawaii with travel costs, at this particular moment in time, with what Frazier would have to put on the table, you wonder if UH would break even on the deal.
Right now the sane thing to do might be just to admit defeat, let the issue officially hit rock bottom and let everyone move on. Nationally, every team plays 12 games, so most pundits and poll voters probably won't even notice that UH has one less than it should. Financially, it might be a wash, trying just to try. Locally, yes. On the radio, on the Internet, etc., it would be the exclamation point, once and for all, that Frazier didn't get it done. Well, yeah.
But we already knew that.
Whatever day the actual deadline does turn out to be will not be the big moment in this whole thing. The turning point was months ago, perhaps years ago. The big moment was when Frazier decided, because he was the guy who could pull this kind of thing off, that strategic procrastination was the way to go.
(You can go back and look up his thinking from a number of quotes, and pick your favorite.)
It wasn't quite Rumsfeldian in its approach. But close enough.
He screwed up. Everybody knows it.
Putting the issue to rest at 12 games would have been a bitter pill. But it would have let people finally let it go and look ahead. Now the schedule is intact. Now the season is in sight.
Instead, no. The issue burns bright as ever. And that isn't good.
No matter. This is about bigger things at this point. Frazier is pulling a Bluto: "Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
That's the way I read yesterday's 5:50 p.m. press release. The guy knows he's already on double-secret probation, and he's going for it. He's got nothing to lose.
Good. The schedule, as it stands now, is weak. This team, Colt Brennan's senior season, all of us, need something better. What's there now isn't good enough.
And also, if it wasn't always, this thing is intensely personal now. He's already blown it once. He isn't going down without a fight.
I don't know if even a miracle would redeem Frazier at this point.
But it looks like we'll have a few more days to find out. "Over?" Not yet.
