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WARRIOR FOOTBALL

Jackson and Espiau
on ‘hit’ parade

SAFETIES Nate Jackson and Jacob Espiau continue to be the most consistent players on the University of Hawaii football team.

Jackson not only finished with a game-high 17 tackles, he also had an interception to thwart one of several scoring drives by Texas Christian, which went on to win the Western Athletic Conference game, 41-21.

Espiau added eight tackles, including one for a 7-yard loss against LaDainian Tomlinson that kept the Heisman Trophy candidate from rushing for 300 for the game.

Tomlinson brought up the fourth quarter tackle in the postgame press conference, saying he wished he could have gained 300 yards, but was happy to get the win.

"He made a good play," Tomlinson said. "I didn't know until later that I had 49 carries. I was getting pretty tired, but I wish I could have carried the ball 50 times for 300 yards."

UH defensive coordinator Kevin Lempa was amazed Tomlinson did what he did, but was still pleased with the defensive effort. His guys were on the field for 40 minutes.

"Nate and Jacob played hard until the last play," Lempa said. "That's all you can ask at that point in the game. Basically, we defended the option OK. But we still made some mistakes that led to big plays."

Offense struggles

Critics of the run-and-shoot would have a field day with the offensive performance on Saturday.

Six times Hawaii went three-and-out with the total time expended on those drives totaling a meager five minutes. Two other drives ended with turnovers leading to TCU having the ball for more than 40 minutes.

"TCU came out in the second half and had a really good drive that took up about seven or eight minutes off the clock (actually 5:03)," UH quarterback Timmy Chang said.

"We came out and went three-and-out, and the momentum just went down from there. I just didn't do a very good job of finding the receivers."

Chang hit only 18 of 44 passes for 266 yards and three touchdowns. The last TD pass to Ashley Lelie in the fourth quarter was against TCU's second unit.

Injury update

The most serious injuries occurred to running back Avion Weaver and linebacker Keani Alapa. Neither will play this weekend against Southern Methodist because of knee injuries.

Strong safety Dee Miller could be back from a bad hamstring pull that has sidelined him the last two games. Jamal Garland missed the last part of the TCU game with a bruised thigh muscle, but is expected to make it back this week.

Offensive tackle Chris Pinkney was cleared of any heart problems last week and could return to the lineup. Afatia Thompson aggravated an ankle injury last week, but should play Saturday.

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By Pal Arnett, Star-Bulletin