Sidelines
[ UH WARRIOR FOOTBALL ]
IT was like a dream. Footballs came to them as if in slow motion. There they were. On the ground. In the air. Just hanging there, sitting there, waiting. Take us, the footballs seemed to say, and so Hawaii's defense did. There was no choice in it, really. There was nothing else to do but take them, and run. The defense that stepped
out of a dreamAnd so last night UH seized opportunity. And ran.
The first one almost floated to Matt Wright, settling into his chest, stopping next to his heart. He cradled it, nestled it, almost lovingly, and when he realized what had happened, he took off on a dead sprint.
He ran, chugging into the green, picking up speed, and it dawned on him, it dawned on us, it dawned on everyone -- he could score. He might score. He was going to score.
"A lot of open field," Wright said. "Was tiring. It was a long run. It was a rush."
He woke up in the end zone 90 yards later, and the defense, all running after him to share in the moment, exploded.
"It turns the game," June Jones said.
You could feel the bandwagon cranking to life.
Loud. It was louder than it had been all season, and there, right then and there, it was over.
But it wasn't. Minutes later Kelvin Millhouse saw a football coming at him, and he grabbed it, and he ran, bursting, diving. Scoring. The defense was detonating. It was like a dream.
There were fumbles and sacks and pressures and stands. The football was on the ground for seconds at a time, waiting for a Warrior to pick it up. It got so bad that when Keani Alapa dropped another sure interception, Nate Jackson came by and kicked him in the okole.
"The name of the game is taking the football away, and if you can do something with it once you get it, you've got a chance to win," said Jones.
There would be other chances. In the second half, just when things were settling down, Robert Grant did it again, snagging a ball one-handed and heading for paydirt. The band played and the confetti sprayed, and Hawaii overcelebrated. "Robert Grant's interception was fantastic," Jones said.
"Robert Grant, you saw that circus catch," defensive coordinator Kevin Lempa said.
But by now it was boring. Routine. By then we'd seen it all.
Fifteen minutes. That's all it had taken UTEP's Wesley Phillips, UH's new favorite quarterback. That's all he had been allowed. Hooked. Yanked. Given the rest of the day off. Grandson of Bum, son of Wade (the genius who picked Rob Johnson over Doug Flutie, fellow Bills fans), young Wesley was O'Donnell-esque in his generosity.
UH is soaring. The bandwagon is in full throttle. A lot of people will go overboard this week, and why not? The game looked like a Three Stooges movie and June Jones was Moe, the head head-slapper. UH hit the Miners with a frying pan last night. It was almost cartoonish.
UTEP was bad. Exceedingly bad, excruciatingly bad. "But they're not," Lempa said. "We did have a great game today."
Who did these guys beat? (Tulsa ... which looks good for UH next week.) No, UTEP did not look good. But Hawaii's defense looked great. After the first big play, "When we came back to the sidelines right after that, we said, 'No more,'" Wright said.
That's confidence. That's what these plays do, what this game, does.
At halftime, "I didn't know what to say," Lempa said. His team was rolling. Everything was working. The defense is sky-high.
Too high? "You can't feel too good," Lempa said.
Not after a game like that. Not after a night that felt like a dream.
UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com
