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Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Monday, October 9, 2000

At home vs. SMU is
a good place to start

LET the winning begin. For the winless University of Hawaii football team, that is.

June Jones' H-Men should end their losing streak against Southern Methodist Saturday.

I said it'll get better after Texas Christian. Revise my optimistic view a bit.

It HAD better get better, or else.

A loss to the Mustangs in the battle for last place in the Western Athletic Conference could continue a downward spiral to an 0-12 season, resulting in a bad trip down memory lane that's all too familiar.

Remember 1998?

Just when we thought it was safe to go back to Aloha Stadium.

But, here it is, those bleak times are staring point blank in the face of the UH football team and its fans once again.

Say, it isn't so.

The game against SMU is very winnable.

For one thing, the H-Men are at home. And if they can't win it here, they can't win it anywhere.

Again, despite the 41-21 loss to TCU, which moved up to No. 12 in the latest AP poll, they did enough encouraging things to give us all hope.

Timmy Chang, who threw for three touchdowns against the Horned Frogs, seems to be getting more poise at quarterback in his on-the-job training.

And the offensive line didn't give up a single sack against the sack-happy TCU defense.

The defense couldn't stop TCU's LaDainian Tomlinson, who ran wild for 294 yards on 49 carries.

His was the third best rushing performance by a UH opponent. Wisconsin's Ron Dayne ran for 339 yards against the Rainbows in 1996 and Marshall Faulk 300 in 1992.

Tomlinson's good, but he's no Dayne or Faulk. UH simply did a poor job of defending Tomlinson, especially on option sweeps.

FORTUNATELY, SMU doesn't have a running back who can compare to the Heisman hopeful. So that should help.

But the play of the UH special teams has got to improve or else. Right now, it's killing the team.

Short kickoffs and line-drive punts gave TCU great field position throughout the game.

The only positive one can say about the UH kicking game is that it gave TCU a shorter field, thereby depriving Tomlinson from gaining 300 yards.

And, believe me, TCU was trying its darndest to have Tomlinson reach that number in a promotional push for the Heisman Trophy.

Again, a couple of dumb penalties hurt the UH cause. It's correctable, says Jones, but so far it hasn't been corrected.

Besides the final score, the most telling statistic in the TCU game was the time of possession -- 40 minutes, 43 seconds for the Frogs compared to 19:17 for the H-Men.

The reason, of course, is Hawaii's high-risk passing offense. You either score in a hurry or go 3-and-out quickly.

The run-and-shoot's an offense that you live or die with. It can be very good or very bad.

The good was the two-play, 80-yard scoring drive that took only 46 seconds, giving UH an eye-opening 7-0 lead after the opening kickoff.

But the bad was really bad.

UH had six 3-and-out series, three of them taking 28, 27 and 24 seconds.

Still, the H-Men will have to live by the pass. More so with their top two running backs -- Afatia Thompson and Avion Weaver -- doubtful for Saturday because of injuries.

Weaver's knee injury could be serious enough to sideline him for the rest of the season.

Senior James Fenderson filled in capably, turning in a 100-yard game. But he lost two fumbles, so the jury's still out on him. And on the rest of the team, for that matter.