Hawaii glad to be
at home for ChristmasFor June Jones, the who in Hawaii's berth in the upcoming ConAgra Foods Hawaii Bowl is not nearly as important as the when and the where.
"I'm really not disappointed at all who we're playing," Jones said yesterday at his weekly news conference. "My feeling on this is, it's a time slot that's the best time slot and it doesn't matter who we're going to play. The viewing audience is going to be big. It's a national (television) game, it's great for Hawaii, not just for the University of Hawaii, it's great for the whole state. I don't really think it matters who we play."
To Jones, the most important name involved in the bowl might not be the opponent, but ESPN, which broadcasts Hawaii's allure and exploits to a captive, frozen mainland audience on Christmas night. In anything short of a BCS bowl bid, Jones said, he can't be convinced that any other invitation or destination would be as good a package deal as this ninth home game. No matter who Hawaii plays.
For the record, UH plays Tulane of Conference USA. The Green Wave, at 7-5, come into the game as somewhat of a mystery team to the local ticket-buying public. And to Jones.
"You know, I haven't even looked at them yet," he said. "We just made the film exchange (yesterday). We probably will get it FedExed (today). And I probably won't look at it, to be quite honest, until the weekend."
While many coaches look forward to the month of practices before a bowl game as an excuse to conduct a second training camp, Jones has decided to give himself and his team a well-deserved break.
"I want them to focus on their school, No. 1 -- we had a lot of road trips -- and get caught up on that," the coach said. "And then, I just want to get away from it. We've got enough time to get ready. It's not like we're putting in a big game plan, we're going to run the same thing we ran last week."
Practice will resume a week from today -- 10 days off. Until then, it's a summer schedule. Players will continue to run and lift weights, but workouts on the practice field today and Thursday will be informal and unsupervised. Most UH assistant coaches will be out recruiting this week.
Jones said he is looking forward to another benefit of the Hawaii Bowl -- being able to go out on field trips together as a team.
"There's so many of the kids we recruit (from the mainland), we can't ... the NCAA rules are so unbelievable, we can't take them to Pearl Harbor, we can't go into Waikiki, we can't do anything with them," Jones said. "And the bowl week allows the kids to go see Hawaii. We can host them. And to me, I'd rather do that."
The team will continue to operate out of its UH football facilities until Dec. 20, Jones said, and then Hawaii will hold its meetings at the team hotel and commute back to campus for practice.
And the bottom line on Hawaii's bowl game opponent, Tulane?
"They won seven games," Jones said. "So, they're pretty good."
What a night: Jones said that Saturday's 41-40 comeback win over San Diego State was as rewarding and emotionally draining as any win he's had at Hawaii.
"It says a lot about the kids," he said. "We're up and then we go down by (11) and then we come back and win, still. That says what kind of character, and says a lot about what our coaches have been able to do to instill the 'hang in there, never quit.' "
Hanging 10: Despite securing the third double-digit-win season in Hawaii's history, Jones took a second to remember the games that got away before allowing himself to reflect on the accomplishment.
"I feel good about it because of the way we won the last game," he said. "It sure would have been nice, really, if we could have beat BYU and we could have beaten Alabama."
Hawaii should have given a better showing at Boise State, too, he said.
"And then the other side of that is we won two games by one point and a couple late, so those games could have went the other way. So I guess all said, winning 10 games is not too bad."