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Sports Watch
IF there were any doubts that he's just a freshman, only months out of high school, Timmy Chang provided Exhibit A that he is -- with his nightmarish performance against Rice last Saturday. Inexperience
translated into
interceptionsHe threw a University of Hawaii record five interceptions, four resulting in touchdowns as Rice romped to a 38-13 victory, sending the H-Men to their fifth loss in six games.
UH fans are hoping that Chang will get some great passing numbers in his career that will make them forget Rainbow quarterbacks of yesteryear.
But nobody expected an ignominous record of five interceptions in a UH day of infamy in Houston.
June Jones isn't saying how close he came to pulling the young St. Louis School sensation. He yanked Nick Rolovich for far less after halftime in the second game of the season against Texas-El Paso.
Jones said he wanted to give his young quarterback as much game experience as possible, allowing him to fight through these kinds of games.
Well, it's unlikely that it will get any worse than that for Chang in the remaining six games of the season.
At least we all hope so, Chang especially.
Here's hoping that the game against the Owls hasn't left an indelible scar on Chang's psyche even though he'll never forget it. Nor will others since his five-INT game is a school record that could stand for a long, long time.
Chang's five interceptions --four of them too errant to describe charitably and without using an expletive -- erased from the Hawaii media guide the names of 10 different UH quarterbacks, Dan Robinson being the latest.
About the only positive spin is that with the 10 names deleted, maybe now the school's sports information office might have some room to restore the year-by-year results prior to 1965.
Just kidding.
The trouncing by the Owls might have been a laugher for Rice fans, but it was no laughing matter to the UH team or its fans.
Unfortunately, Chang had more than a literal hand in the outcome of the game. But it wasn't all his fault.
It was a team effort, really.
THE Hawaii defense wasn't able to stop Rice's spread option anyway. Three of the Owls' scoring drives were for 67, 76 and 78 yards as they ran the football at will.
It shouldn't have been a surprise.
The Owls came into the game, averaging 223 yards a game rushing, 13th best in the nation. UH was 97th in rushing defense, allowing 190.6 a game.
It was a matter of an irresistible force meeting a movable object.
What was totally unexpected, though, was that the Owls were 101st in the nation in pass defense. Not anymore, as you can guess.
It also didn't help that the two times the Owls fumbled, they came up with it.
Not that it proved to be a turning point, but Rice's first touchdown came on a fumble recovery in the end zone. Linebacker Bronson Liana tried to recover the ball for a touchback when he simply could have batted it out of the end zone and achieve the same result.
Chalk it up to a lack of game experience on Liana's part.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
With six games under their collective belts, the H-Men had better start using some of their hard-learned experience to salvage something out of an already disappointing season.
It won't get any easier.
San Jose State comes to town with the best total offense in the Western Athletic Conference. Leading the Spartans will be Deonce Whitaker, the WAC's second best running back after TCU's LaDainian Tomlinson.