Sidelines
Lelie might have
had shot at HeismanASHLEY Lelie received one Heisman vote last year. One. And he was lucky to get that. Despite some great plays and glaring numbers, the national media was not exactly swayed by his candidacy.
A player from Hawaii is not going to be a serious candidate for the Heisman Trophy.
That single vote? Well, it was a nice gesture.
But no, to everyone outside the 50th state Lelie was just some guy from a lower conference in a gaudy offense in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the middle of the night.
Of course, all of that changed on draft day. A lot of things changed on draft day, forever.
But had he returned to the University of Hawaii, had he not given up his final year to turn pro, were he not with the Denver Broncos now, could Lelie have been an actual, authentic, legitimate Heisman candidate this season?
Maybe. Think about it.
There are no real front-runners this season. And Lelie is a first-round draft choice.
This might have been the once-in-a-lifetime convergence of timing and talent that could have seen a UH player with a real chance at being invited to New York.
They're grasping for guys to call Heisman candidates this season. You know how bad it is -- the leading contender is from Iowa State! (And I say this as an Iowa State fan; there are four of us.)
It may be impossible to win the Heisman at Hawaii, but it's also impossible at Iowa State. How impossible? Troy Davis rushed for 2,000 yards, a Heisman shoo-in stat -- two years in a row -- and never got close.
It's a different world today. Lelie's exciting stats and unreal highlights could have filled a vast void.
But Lelie is different, too. This year, he's with Denver. And we can only wonder "what if?"
>> The turf war is back in the news. Oh great.
Let's just say this: If June Jones really wants to get Fieldturf in Aloha Stadium, if he really thinks it will mean that much for his team (and he does), he's probably smart not to let it go until he actually sees new fake grass on that field. It's just too bad for everyone involved that this debate stopped being a debate (and wasn't this debate already decided?) and turned no-shades-of-gray personal a long time ago. Hawaii is a small place. And these people are probably all going to have to continue to deal with one another in some fashion or another for years to come.
>> Do an Internet Google search for "infection astroturf" and it comes up with page after page about reptiles and birds.
>> The Seattle Seahawks. Coach Mike Holmgren could very well get fired at the end of this season. It's in the Pacific Northwest. It's in the NFL.
It already has Fieldturf.
You do the math.
(Sorry. I know. That's just cruel. But it's only a matter of time before UH football fans have their periodic mass panic attack about this kind of thing.)
>> Watching Chad Kapanui cover kickoffs is a guilty pleasure. Beautiful destruction that you can't tear your eyes away from. Like "Shark Week."
>> Can you even imagine that Hyrum Peters once played another position?
>> How did Britton Komine get so open for that first touchdown? This is how you attack a two-deep zone.
The corner tries to bump, to disrupt the pattern, the receiver, but then stays shallow. The safety behind him is responsible for everything deep from the middle of the field to the sideline. The outside receiver went to the post. The slotback, Komine, looped behind him, deep down the sideline.
The safety stayed in the middle, in the post, and Komine was left wide open. Touchdown. That 48-yard pass down the middle to Justin Colbert in the third quarter? Same play. The safety went the other way, to cover the receiver who had burned him before. There was Colbert, with no Nevada players within 10 yards of him.
"Pick your poison," Jones said as he grabbed my notebook and scribbled it up.
There's a lot of talk about complicated offenses, but sometimes it comes down to this: Beat man-to-man coverage, and in zone, force the safety to choose who he is going to cover -- and who he isn't.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com