Sidelines
Credit UH’s ice brigade
for freezing MustangsTHERE are certain things that you just don't do. You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. You don't wear shoes in the house. You don't ask June Jones the same question twice in one week.
You don't, under any circumstances, mess with another man's fries.
And you don't dump the water bucket on your coach in the final seconds when you're beating a team that is about to be 0-5.
But on Saturday night, as the clock ticked down on 42-10, Hawaii's defense did.
First, defensive line coach Vantz Singletary couldn't outrun the ice cubes, and later, it was defensive coordinator Kevin Lempa's turn to shiver in the night.
The revelry seemed out of place at first glance. The win clinched nothing, the outcome was never really in doubt. The SMU Mustangs were winless, still are. It was too soon for this kind of silliness. A celebration like this went against every unwritten rule.
But the Hawaii defenders knew. There was more than met the eye that night. They knew what they had done.
"I thought our defense mentally made fewer mistakes than they ever made," Jones said. It was, "Probably the best game overall I think we've played since I've been here in four years, defensively."
Even in the heat of the moment, the players knew it. Even without benefit of films or hindsight, they could feel that something special had happened. This ho-hum win was somehow bigger, they had done something great. And so they seized the moment gleefully. Their leader, Lempa, found himself soaked with triumph and ice.
It was defensive end Travis LaBoy, among others, who had swooped in from the blind side.
"Don't pin that on me," he said after the game, smiling, and trying to look innocent.
But LaBoy was in on all kinds of mischief, along the line, in the backfield. It was fitting that he celebrated on this breakthrough night. It's already been a long journey for him along this short season. He's trying to find the secret -- as Pisa Tinoisamoa did before him -- of fitting his prodigious talent within the system.
It hasn't always been easy, step by step by step, and it's not over yet. But at the end of the game, as the band played school songs, there were Singletary and LaBoy, with their arms around each other's shoulders like little kids, drinking in the moment. They'd traveled this long road together. It had been a wonderful night.
"Travis LaBoy," Jones would say later, "was defensive player of the game. And he had a great day."
He had it for the same reason his defensive teammates did, the entire defensive unit did. "I think I made this statement that I thought we were physically the best that we've been since I've been here," Jones said.
But that's not enough. "It's one thing to be physically that way," Jones said.
It's another to be on the same level mentally. Saturday night, Hawaii was there. Everyone was right there.
It was their play together, mentally, as a team, that pushed Hawaii's defense to another level, and that is why they celebrated. It was what they celebrated.
Tinoisamoa continues to prove that ability plus scheme times acquired instinct equals k-toosh. And then sometimes you get lucky. Hyrum Peters moves to safety due to an injury and the next thing you know you've got a difference-maker. He knows things. "He's anticipating," Jones said a week ago. "And he sees things before they happen."
It's catching. Saturday night, after the game, LaBoy's eyes lit up when he told Lempa about the play of the tackles. It had been something special, and the ends made spectacular plays. Middle linebacker Chris Brown had his best game in a UH uniform, Jones said. The front seven was everywhere on this night.
"And that's where you normally win, in there," Jones said. "And we dominated in there, I thought."
The best defensive game in June Jones' four years. The bucket brigade should have found him, too.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com