Thursday, October 7, 1999

Rice has plan
for beating ’Bows

Owls head coach Ken Hatfield
has brought the team here early
to focus on winning

RAINBOW NOTEBOOK

By Paul Arnett
Star-Bulletin

The fact the Rice Owls were already in town setting up shop at Kahuku High School wasn't lost on Hawaii head coach June Jones.

"He has the right idea," Jones said of Rice head coach Ken Hatfield. "Like I told the kids, they have a plan. They've come here to win a football game. And coming early is a good idea."

Jones took a similar approach on the Rainbows' first road trip to Dallas to play Southern Methodist. The Rainbows went up a few days early, got themselves acclimated to Big "D" and the five-hour time difference. The result? Hawaii got its first WAC road victory in nearly seven years. The 25th time was a charm.

"You have to be here at least 48 hours before kickoff to get used to your surroundings," Hatfield said. "By Saturday night, I feel like we'll be ready for the difficult challenge of playing the Rainbows at Aloha Stadium."

OFFENSE

Jones knows the Owls' wishbone attack is drawing all the headlines, but it's the Rice defense that gives him cause for concern.

Yes, the Owls line up in a traditional 4-3. And granted, it's something the Rainbows are quite familiar with entering the sixth game of the season.

"But what you notice right away is they don't beat themselves," Jones said. "These are smart kids who know where to go and what assignments to follow.

"They don't play a lot of man defense, therefore, they don't let you beat them deep. The secondary plays a traditional zone look. It's our job to be patient and take what they give us."

Rice's secondary may not be flashy, but it's one of the better ones around. The Owls' pass efficiency rating is 115.1, the best in the Western Athletic Conference and 45th in the nation.

The Owls are second in the league in total defense, yielding 323.8 yards a game. That's good enough for 33rd in the nation and raised both of Jones' eyebrows.

"When you consider the caliber of competition, those numbers are even more impressive," Jones said. "They have played a very tough schedule and seem to be getting more comfortable with what they're doing every week."

This will be Rice's fifth road game in six weeks. The Owls opened the season with three consecutive away-games against Houston, Michigan and Texas.

Granted, the Wolverines won handily, 37-3, in Ann Arbor, Mich., but Rice came back to keep the Texas game in doubt right until the end. The Longhorns prevailed by five points, but scored only 18. And this from a team that ran up 69 points against Stanford.

Rice is also a young defensive unit. There are only two seniors in a starting lineup that includes five sophomores. The leaders of the pack? Well, linebacker Dan Dawson and free safety Jason Hebert are two good places to start.

The two sophomores are the leading tacklers on the team. Dawson has 48 tackles from his bandit position, including one sack, and Hebert has 46 tackles and two interceptions. Hebert won WAC defensive player of the week honors for making 19 tackles in the loss to Michigan.

"What we have to do is execute our offense and not worry about what they do," Jones said. "We're getting better every week, but there are still a lot of little things we're doing wrong."

DEFENSE

Defensive coordinator Greg McMackin didn't see a lot of the wishbone during his coaching days for the Seattle Seahawks or even as a coordinator for the Miami Hurricanes.

"But I did see Hawaii's spread option when I was at Utah and we faced it in practice during my stay at Navy," McMackin said. "I feel like we'll have a good plan in place this weekend."

The plan for Rice's option attack that employs several formations, including the use of a tight end, is to play responsibly. McMackin doesn't want a lot of free-lancing on the field.

"Each guy has an area or player that he's responsible for and that's it," McMackin explained. "You stay with that guy no matter where he goes or whether he has the football. Let the play come to you and then you make the play."

Rice quarterback Chad Richardson is the trigger to Hatfield's spread option that includes a wishbone formation. He has 261 yards and two touchdowns, and has completed 9 of 34 passes for 157 yards and two scores.

Halfback Leroy Bradley is second on the team in rushing with 256 yards on 40 carries, but fullback Clint Leschber - who has gained 140 hard yards - will be McMackin's key.

"You must stop the fullback in this offense because everything else is set up off of that option," McMackin said. "If the fullback gets six to eight yards on every play, then you're in big trouble.

"We'll have guys keyed on him all night to try to keep him in check. What makes the option difficult for us is we can't blitz like we want to. If you have a run blitz called and they go the other way, then it gets scary in a hurry."

Rice is first in the league in rushing, averaging 215.4 yards a game, but last in total offense (254.6 yards) and seventh in scoring, averaging only 11.8 points a game.

Hawaii has defended the run better of late, but is still yielding an average of 148 yards a game. The Rainbows are second in the league in scoring defense (22.2 points a game) and third in total defense (346 yards a game).

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TODAY'S RAINBOW NOTEBOOK

Rainbows could play
at home for Christmas

Hawaii head coach June Jones doesn't want to talk about bowl possibilities. He doesn't even want to know where the Rainbows might end up should they be at the top of the Western Athletic Conference come mid-November.

"I don't think about any of that stuff," Jones said this morning. "We're not even at the halfway point of our season. All we're thinking about is Rice and believe me, that's enough for our guys."

Speculation is running rampant that the Rainbows - who need only seven wins to qualify for a bid - may wind up in the Oahu or Aloha bowls regardless of where they finish. At this point, the WAC champion should go to the Las Vegas Bowl and the second choice could wind up in the Mobile Bowl in Alabama. But if Hawaii wins at least seven games and winds up WAC champion, things could get very interesting for the league.

Let's say Hawaii wins the WAC and Fresno State finishes second with TCU coming in third. TCU would go to Mobile because of its proximity to Alabama. Fresno State would probably wind up in Las Vegas and Hawaii would stay home to play in the Christmas Day doubleheader.

"The bottom line is the bowl games want not only a good matchup, but they want to sell seats," Bowl Games Hawaii chief executive officer Lenny Klompus said. "Las Vegas wouldn't mind having Fresno State, even if they didn't win the title, because (Fresno) travels so well."

It also would benefit Hawaii to stay home because the Aloha Bowl is one of the most-watched games every year. Hawaii would probably need to be WAC champion and have a gaudy 9-3 or better record to be considered for that game.

Hawaii also could wind up in the Oahu Bowl against the fifth pick of the Pac-10. But it's still a better deal than Las Vegas because the Oahu Bowl is on ESPN and the Las Vegas Bowl is on ESPN2.

"We're going to let that take care of itself," Jones said. "All we can do is go out each week and try to win a football game. Come talk to me after the WAC champion has been crowned."

Going on the road

Next week the Rainbows will send three coaches to the mainland to do some recruiting in California.

Jones said today that assistants George Lumpkin, Dennis McKnight and Dan Morrison will go on the road to evaluate potential recruits at the high school and junior college levels. The other coaches will do some similar work at the local level next Thursday through the weekend.

"We can go to the schools, but we can't have contact with the kids," Jones said. "We'll hit some junior colleges on the mainland and do high school work on the mainland and locally."

This will be the second major recruiting trip for the staff. Coaches made some initial contacts while in Texas for the Southern Methodist game.

Taking a break

Even though part of the coaching staff won't be around for a few days that doesn't mean the Rainbows won't have any practices during the bye next week.

"I haven't decided what we're going to do yet," Jones said. "We will take some time off, but how much will depend on how we do this weekend against Rice."

Injury update

The Rainbows enter this week's game with Rice fairly healthy. Players who are out are safeties Daniel Ho-Ching (shoulder) and Jacob Espiau (hamstring), slotback Davey deLaura (hamstring) and defensive end Matt Elam (bruised ribs).

Receiver Attrice Brooks has recovered from his ankle sprain and should be ready to go. Cornerback Quincy LeJay missed yesterday's practice with the flu, but practiced this morning.

"We should get Davey and Daniel back after the bye week," Jones said. "Daniel could have already been playing by now, but we wanted that shoulder to get better before we put him back in there."

The severity of Espiau's hamstring pull could keep him sidelined all the way to the Navy game. He wasn't on crutches today, but the consensus is the pull could keep him sidelined for up to six weeks.

-- By Paul Arnett, Star-Bulletin

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