RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Hawaii quarterback Tim Chang broke the school career yardage record last night with a 403-yard and four TD performance.

Chang steps up
performance

Stats / notes
Notebook
Sidelines
UH better than gold
Rayburn made UH O-line work hard

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By Jason Kaneshiro
jkaneshiro@starbulletin.com

This was the Tim Chang an entire state had been waiting for.

In what seemed like a flashback to his days as a record-setting high-school passer at St. Louis School, the Hawaii quarterback dismantled the Tulsa defense last night to guide the Warriors to a 37-14 win at Aloha Stadium.

The redshirt sophomore completed 34 of 49 passes for a season-high 403 yards and a career-best four touchdowns. Like many of his prep games, he torched the opposing defense early to give his team a commanding lead and was on the bench by the midway point of the third quarter.

"Any time you can get a game like that it's great," Chang said. "Any time you're up on a team and Coach takes you out it says that you're moving the ball and doing a good job."

In the process of last night's performance, Chang became the most prolific passer in school history, passing Dan Robinson's career mark of 6,038 yards in the second quarter.

He also became the school's career total offense leader with 6,216 yards, breaking the record of 5,631 held by Garrett Gabriel since 1990.

Chang entered the game with 1,723 passing yards this season and 5,864 in his career. Hawaii coach June Jones helped Chang's record run by calling just one running play in the first half, and Chang took advantage by throwing for 250 yards before halftime.

He set the record -- in less than two full seasons as a Warrior -- with a 12-yard strike to Jeremiah Cockheran.

"It's part what we do offensively and part him," UH quarterbacks coach Dan Morrison said. "You can have this offense all you want, but if you don't have a guy who can trigger it then you're not going to do what we're doing."

Said Chang: "It's good to have things like that, but you can look back on that after your career. Right now we have a goal, and that's to win and get to a postseason game and hopefully a WAC championship."

Chang pulled the trigger with an authority coaches and fans hadn't seen since late in his freshman year. Gone was the pain of wrist and pinkie injuries, and the hesitant tosses that marked his early season games went with them.

Last night's performance was also Chang's first game without an interception since Oct. 7, 2000, against TCU.

"He has more certainty in his throws and there's more precision and that comes with confidence," Morrison said. "As he gets more confidence the ball will come out a lot quicker and he'll know exactly where he's going with it."

Chang started the game by overthrowing a wide-open Justin Colbert deep over the middle on the Warriors' first play from scrimmage. But few after that were off the mark.

He went 6 of 8 in the Warriors' first touchdown drive of the game, which ended with a 10-yard scoring strike to Clifton Herbert in the first quarter.

Chang then hit Cockheran with a 22-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter for his longest completion of the half.

He closed his half by flipping a shovel pass to Josh Galeai, who followed a group of linemen into the end zone for an 18-yard score.

Tulsa struggled to put any pressure on Chang, and when the Golden Hurricane managed to disturb the pocket Chang nimbly sidestepped his pursuers to fire strikes downfield.

The connection between Chang and his receivers was also evident

"When he messes up a throw we get mad at him because we know he can put it there," said receiver Britton Komine, who hauled in a game-high nine passes for 140 yards.

"There's still little things we need to work on, but we're feeling pretty explosive right now and we're ready to take it to Fresno (State on Friday)."

While Chang put up the kinds of numbers fans had dreamed about since he first stepped on the Manoa campus, he said his best games are still to come.

"I feel like we're in sync and it's only going to get better as the season goes on," Chang said. "The timing's going to get better and the chemistry's going to get better and everything's just going to click. This is just a start of something good."

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[ KEY STATS ]

[ GAME STATS ]

SCORING SUMMARY

First quarter

Haw--FG Ayat 25, 10:57
Haw--Herbert 10 pass from Chang (run failed), 3:31

Second quarter

Haw--Cockerhan 22 pass from Chang (Ayat kick), 11:38
Haw--Galeai 18 pass from Chang (Ayat kick), 4:19

Third quarter

Haw--Herbert 2 pass from Chang (Ayat kick), 11:25
Tul--Kilian 5 run (DeVault kick) 8:18

Fourth quarter

Haw--Ilaoa 41 pass from Withy-Allen (Ayat kick), 12:18
Tul--Parrish 1 run (DeVault kick) 4:48

A--34,098.

INDIVIDUAL STATS

RUSHING -- Tulsa: Richardson 15-49, Parrish 5-12, Gooch 14-8, Kilian 1-5. Hawaii: Withy-Allen 3-34, West 3-22, Whieldon 1-9, Galeai 3-2.

PASSING -- Tulsa: Gooch 23-41-1-233. Kilian 2-2-0-24. Hawaii: Chang 34-49-0-403, Withy-Allen 7-12-0-110, Whieldon 0-2-0-0.

RECEIVING -- Tulsa: Culton 10-97, Bryant 5-32, Richardson 4-41, Blakenship 2-46, Mills 1-36, Taylor 1-8, Landrum 1-1, Parrish 1-(-4). Hawaii: Komine 9-140, Herbert 8-57, Colbert 7-103, Cockheran 6-73, Mitchell 4-34, Gossett 3-28, Galeai 3-33, Ilaoa 1-41, West 1-4.

WAC standings

	CONFERENCE				OVERALL
	W	L	W	L	Str
Boise St.	3	0	6	1	W5
Hawaii	4	1	5	2	W2
Fresno St.	2	1	4	4	L1
San Jose St.	2	1	4	4	L2
Nevada	2	1	3	4	W1
LaTech	1	2	2	5	L4
UTEP	1	2	2	5	W1
Rice	1	3	2	5	L1
SMU	1	3	1	7	L9
Tulsa	0	3	0	7	L17

Friday

Boise St. 67, Fresno St. 21

Yesterday

SMU 37, Louisiana Tech 34

Nevada 52, San Jose St. 24

Utep 38, Rice 35

Hawaii 37, Tulsa 14

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[ TURNING POINT ]

Early defensive stop gives Warriors boost

When Hawaii's Travis LaBoy and Isaac Sopoaga sandwiched Tulsa running back Eric Richardson for a 6-yard loss on the Golden Hurricane's first drive last night, it didn't seem like that big a deal right away.

But it was important for UH's defense to get off to a good start, and the Warriors' first tackle-for-loss of many for the night forced Tulsa to punt a down later.

There wasn't much question going into the game that Hawaii would put up points.

But with Tulsa's offense improving the past three weeks, you had to wonder going in if the Hurricane's attack might keep them in the game.

That speculation ended quickly -- as quickly as it took LaBoy and Sopoaga to smother Richardson as soon as he got the ball from quarterback Tyler Gooch on a draw play.

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Dave Reardon, Star-Bulletin

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[ COMING UP ]

Warriors will meet Fresno on short week

Hawaii goes where it has rarely won before when it visits Fresno State on Friday.

Will the Bulldogs (4-4, 2-1 Western Athletic Conference) roll over and play dead after their 67-21 blowout loss at Boise State two days ago? Or will FSU bite back hard, remembering its last-minute 38-34 upset loss at Hawaii last year?

In either case, Fresno State freshman quarterback Paul Pinegar will likely figure in somehow. He passed for 371 yards and three touchdowns against the Broncos.

Hawaii is 3-10-1 at Fresno, with its last victory there in 1985. The Bulldogs lead the overall series 18-15-1.

FSU gets a full week to prepare at home, while UH has six days between games and loses most of another traveling.

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Dave Reardon, Star-Bulletin

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