Sidelines
FOUR words to make Hawaii football fans nervous: Rice runs the ball. That's not what you want to hear. Not after last week. Not after seeing Chance Kretschmer gallop through Hawaii's defense in the second half, taking time and hope with him. UH’s apparent weakness
plays into Rice’s hands"It was a very close game until that last drive, that last field goal," Rice coach Ken Hatfield said. It was Hatfield's kind of game. That last drive. That last field goal.
Nevada put the game away, and Hawaii couldn't stop it. Hawaii couldn't stop the run. Hawaii couldn't stop the clock. Nevada just kept chugging along. Hatfield knows the story. It was a very close game. Until then.
"It's just we're not good enough to play that way right now (defensively). You know, we're not big enough inside, we're not physical enough," UH coach June Jones said.
"We've got to understand our shortcomings, you know, our liabilities, and adjust a little bit. Which we did, and then we didn't execute properly." They couldn't stop the run.
They have a week to figure it out. But Hawaii fans are nervous. They have reason to be.
Rice runs the ball.
How concerned is UH? They've been practicing for Rice's wishbone option since training camp. "We even spent some time last week, a little bit on it," Jones said. In hindsight now, maybe a mistake. But Rice's scheme requires that kind of time.
Option football is assignment football. Defense against the option is simple, but fragile. If everybody does his job, you're fine. One wrong move, you don't do what you're supposed to do, you're not where you are supposed to be, just once, and the next thing you know a quarterback with a 5-flat 40 time is going 80 yards.
Jones saw warning signs in last week's performance. It's why, he said, Kretschmer looked so good. "I mean if you're a defensive lineman, you have a gap and you don't take that gap? Well, there's a giant hole there," he said. "If you're an outside backer and you're supposed to be four yards outside the quarterback and you don't do that and he breaks contain and throws a touchdown pass, I mean, that's what happens when you don't do what you're supposed to do."
That's what happened Saturday. Warriors were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were miscommunicating and running the wrong way and giving cowboy Kretschmer lots of wide open spaces. They were in the wrong gaps. On the wrong page. And that's fixable. But it's also scary.
Rice is no Nevada. Rice is not a great team, that's not the point. It might not even be a good team. But Rice is a running team. This is what it does. It's who Rice is. It's what Hatfield has studied for more than 20 years as a head coach, from Air Force to Arkansas to Clemson to Rice. What June Jones is to the run-and-shoot, Hatfield is to option football.
And Nevada has exposed, for everyone to see -- and remember, we also saw first-half flashes of it against I-AA Montana -- that once again Hawaii's weakness is stopping the run, those long sustained drives that take chunk after chunk, minute after minute, while keeping the ball out of Timmy Chang's hands.
That's the problem. Jones doesn't ask for great defense, just enough to outscore people. Jones' system scores, but it scores quickly, and gives the ball right back. Hatfield's scores slowly. Slow, plodding, persistent, moving the chains, taking away time, shrinking your window of opportunity. Forcing you to play perfectly. Rice knows how to run the clock, to cut off your air.
That last drive.
That last field goal.
The wishbone is 3 yards and a turf burn. The wishbone is old fashioned and outdated, even at Rice. The Owls have diversified their offense, different formations and looks. But the run is still there. The option is still there. It's still who they are and what they do. Especially this week. Especially after what they saw last week.
"Because if I'm them right now," Jones said, "I'd probably jump right back in the wishbone and start running it."
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com