Sidelines
Can Warriors ride
the wave in Provo?YOU can almost feel the thunder, the lightheadedness, the chills. You can almost see those 75,000 screaming maniacs, when you close your eyes, their waiting over, the pouncing begun. You can imagine the suffocating chaos, deafening echoes, burning lungs, bursting hearts.
Blue Crush isn't a movie. Not anymore. Tomorrow, it's an afternoon in Provo, Utah.
Big games are different. They feel different. The energy is different, the atmosphere is extrasensory; it can carry a team or eat it alive. Hawaii-BYU has always had that -- on one side, at least. But this year, thanks to The Punt, thanks to 72-45, the Cougars are in on the rivalry. This year the energy is doubled. This year the game is big on both sides, those 75,000 in the stands waiting not just to watch a game but to swallow UH whole.
This game will be huge, but it will be huge the way waves are huge. It can be great fun, the thrill of a lifetime, the stuff of which legends are made. People will remember forever if UH can just stay ahead of disaster crashing in its wake, if Hawaii can just catch this one and ride. And it can. Maybe it can.
But one misstep and that wave buries you, it batters you.
It breaks you.
It's only the second week of the season, and we've already reached a turning point. This isn't just another game.
Hawaii can win and Hawaii can lose, but Hawaii must not be broken. UH can't allow itself to be crushed, it can't lose its season in the emotional avalanche waiting for it tomorrow in LaVell Edwards Stadium.
It takes a special kind of player to thrive in these conditions, to tingle in the excitement, to rise with this adrenaline, to be lifted by the energy, to soak it in and ask for more. Chad Owens is this kind of player. Travis Laboy, I predict, will have a big game. He has a tough time getting through practice, but nights like this bring him to life.
But it's early for adversity like this, and Hawaii is still jelling. Timmy Chang, the quarterback, is still building his confidence, he's still coming back, and in more ways than one. This wouldn't be a good time to have all his hard-won progress wiped away. But it could be. If he's crushed, it could be.
In this atmosphere, he'll have to show things UH hasn't seen from him yet. He'll have to find them within himself, when his heart is racing and 75,000 people are screaming and the Cougars are hitting and the clock is ticking and everyone in the huddle is looking at him. It's why you play quarterback. It's why he's back now, with a still-broken finger. It's why those big-wave surfers go out in an ocean gone mad.
That's what this game could be like -- a 25-footer.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com