Sports Watch
AS much as everyone is looking forward to seeing how the Hawaii football Rainbows will do under new head coach June Jones, don't expect a sellout for the season opener Sept. 4 against Southern California. ’Bows playing
familiar role of
opening doormatA lot of disillusioned fans are still adopting a wait-and-see attitude.
Can't say that I blame them. It hasn't been pretty the last three years. Still, you hope attendance will hit 40,000 -- a figure the 'Bows haven't reached since the season-ending game against Notre Dame in 1997.
I'm optimistic about this season. Jones has recruited a bunch of athletes to go along with a seasoned group of returnees who are tired of losing.
Nobody's expecting much, so that could be a benefit for the Rainbows, picked to be among college football's bottom 10 teams this season.
So what's the early line for the USC opener?
According to the Platinum Sheet - which I read for amusement only - the Trojans are 25-point favorites over the Rainbows.
That spread should drop to around 22 points by kickoff, if the 'Bows can stay healthy.
USC isn't the only Associated Press Top 25 team opening its season with a breather.
UCLA has scheduled Boise State, which will play Hawaii two weeks later. Preseason No. 1 Florida State opens against Louisiana Tech, No. 2 Tennessee hosts Wyoming and No. 5 Florida meets Western Michigan.
Louisiana Tech must be everyone's favorite whipping boy. The Bulldogs are also the season's first game for No. 7 Texas A&M.
PENN State and Arizona -- rated third and fourth, respectively -- collide in an opener for both teams next Saturday with all the stakes of a playoff game. But it was a game match-made for TV to launch the college season.
Before agreeing to play in the Pigskin Classic, the Nittany Lions had scheduled Akron for their opener. Now they'll have to zip the Zips the following week. Coach Joe Paterno's not dumb.
Neither is Arizona's Dick Tomey, who lined up TCU, Middle Tennessee State and Texas-El Paso as his nonconference opponents.
Not that you can blame coaches for scheduling soft openers.
Take Florida's Steve Spurrier, for example. If you have to play Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and LSU on successive weeks, as his Gators will this season, you need to open up with weather-vane schools Western Michigan and Central Florida. Or Citadel and NE Louisiana as they did last year.
Unfortunately for the Rainbows, since they are some other team's breather, their openers traditionally have been rugged encounters:
Arizona, Minnesota, Boston College, Texas, BYU, Oregon, Texas A&M and now Southern Cal in this decade alone.
Regan Lee failed to qualify for the match-play portion of the U.S. Amateur, but he had a great learning experience in playing Pebble Beach, site of next year's U.S. Open, for the first time.
"It's not often you get to play for free at a course that costs $300 to play a round," said Lee, who represented Hawaii.
"They set it up like a U.S. Open. The fairways were 25 yards wide, 50 percent of what it normally is. And the rough was six inches, instead of an inch and three-quarters. You couldn't hit anything but a 9-iron 100 yards out of there."
Lee found the Pacific Ocean trying to reach Pebble's famous par-5, 18th hole in two. "I went for it. I told myself I might not play there again."
Bill Kwon has been writing about
sports for the Star-Bulletin since 1959.
