Sidelines
Table is set for big game
from ChangTHIS is it. Again. The gauntlet has been thrown down, the fans are rumbling. (Actually, that's not entirely true. In the old days, fans used to rumble. Now they mostly e-mail a lot, or check into some Web site. Is this better or worse? I'm not sure.)
This is the week that Hawaii quarterback Timmy Chang becomes a man, once and for all.
This is the week, at UTEP, that he wins on the road, comes into his own, masters the offense, runs up the score, shows toughness and poise, wins hearts, minds and his party's nomination for lieutenant governor, is carried off the field on his loving teammates' shoulders and comes up with a solution to Aloha Stadium's traffic-flow problem during some deep thinking on the plane ride home.
And if the last one wasn't that breakout game we've all been waiting for, then this next one, at last, will have to be.
Right?
Right?
One problem. We're ready for it. But it's not our timetable that matters here.
LET ME TELL you something about Timmy Chang. He has the tools and the talent, and can be every bit as good as everyone says he can be, which is very. (See above.) The problem is when. And watching Chang throw the football has a way of making people very impatient.
The decisions are quick, boom!, and then every pass has an arc to it, every ball is a spiral. A very catchable ball. It seems to almost nestle into its destination. A beautiful ball. It's hard to drop a Timmy Chang pass.
(Insert your own interception joke here.)
But June Jones has seen the very same things, how this guy is sharp and smooth at the same time, how Chang feels the game and delivers the ball.
How when this guy puts it all together, he's going to be great.
But he's not, not yet. He has a lot of yards but a losing record, and he's averaged two interceptions a game.
The easy games are easy, but the hard games are still hard, and it can be frustrating to watch for those of us who keep waiting for it all to click.
Sometimes it happens in a flash, sometimes it staggers, a confounding process of big games and little steps. For Chang, it will come when it comes. For the rest of us -- press, fans, teammates -- this little bit of reality can test our patience. It's tough to sit through growing pains when we've been hungering for greatness for so long.
And it seems like so long because Jones gambled and threw Chang into the fray as a freshman two years ago, putting a season on the shoulders of the kid. He couldn't wait any longer. You may sell no wine before its time, but in college football you go with what you've got when you can get it.
We all have less patience for Chang, the high school all-American, the local boy. We want him to be ready, to do what we can already see. There is even less patience now that the standard for quarterback at UH is Nick Rolovich against BYU. Chang is not allowed to be ordinary. We forget that Rolo against BYU was one game that took two years to attain, that Rolovich had plenty of times in his career (even into his heroic performance against Fresno State) when he struggled with coverages, when he was intercepted and knocked around.
It takes time to make a quarterback. It took Rolovich a year and a half. Chang, even if he's been around forever, has had his career and his progress constantly interrupted. Injury. Surgery. Who knows how much that concussion his freshman year affected his development?
Chang has played a mere five games these past two seasons. His career total is now 15 and counting. Which means that if we go by the year-and-a-half time frame he just might be turning that corner right ... about ... now.
Yes, this might be it. Today might be the day. Or it might not. It's a tough lesson, but we're learning. We're not the ones who have to be ready in order for Chang to be great.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com