Thursday, February 4, 1999

UH to play spring
game off-isle

By Paul Arnett
Star-Bulletin

Hawaii head coach June Jones will not only have a spring game in April, he plans to play it on a neighbor island.

"I've always thought it was good to go play a game off-island," Jones said yesterday after announcing the Rainbows had received 21 letters-of-intent. "Not only have most of the mainland kids never been to one, but a lot of the local guys have never gone to Maui or the Big Island."

Now that recruiting is out of the way, Jones and his staff will spend the next two months making a battle plan for the spring.

Jones announced yesterday that spring practice will begin on March 29. He will spread those 15 practice sessions over a four-week period, culminating with a spring game on April 24. It will be the first Green-White game since Bob Wagner's last year in 1995.

"We're thinking about having it on the Big Island," Jones said. "Originally, I wanted to have two spring games. But since they are tearing up the turf in April at Aloha Stadium, we decided to have only one."

Jones said the changes Hawaii will make to its offensive and defensive alignments won't be that high tech. The Rainbows will employ an attacking 4-3 defense and use a four-wide approach on offense similar to the run-and-shoot.

"But we will also use a tight end in certain formations," Jones said. "This offense is not that difficult to learn. We will use only one running back. When we have a tight end, we'll most likely be three-wide with one back."

The defensive alignment switch from a 3-4 to a 4-3 required the Rainbows to sign as many linemen as possible. They landed four and expect to sign a fifth today.