Sidelines
Tatupu was like Kapanui,
not PakulakQUICK quiz: Who is Glenn Pakulak?
Correct. He is the Kentucky punter, winner of this year's Mosi Tatupu Special Teams Award.
Who?
Correct again.
Nothing against Pakulak. He's an All-American. He has a 45.6-yard average. He seems like a nice guy. In his acceptance speech, he thanked his long snapper. This is everything you want in an award candidate. Everything you want in a winner.
But in picking another good guy with a big leg, the Mosi is missing an opportunity to be truly special.
They already have an award for punters. The Ray Guy Award.
They already have an award for kickers. The Lou Groza Award.
Kick returners are fine, too. They're exciting. They have stats. But these guys have spots set aside for them on all the All-America teams.
The Tatupu Award should be something different. It should represent the spirit of the guys without positions, the real special-teamers. The guys who sprint 40 yards into an explosion of sound and fury that too often leaves them dazed and landing on their heads. The guys who de-cleat and get de-cleated, the guys who hold and get hit in the back.
The guys who find meaning in this chaos often enough to anonymously turn games around.
Someone who can become a star under these conditions, without a position; that's the kind of guy who should win this award.
A guy like Hawaii's Chad Kapanui.
Kapanui is that rare special-teams guy who has become a star in the transition game. He grabs your attention. You put the binoculars on him, rather than the ball, to follow his wild, violent ride. He's a maestro of collisions. It's like watching a great basketball player take off from the baseline. You don't know what's going to happen next. Only that you can't tear your eyes away.
"Chad's a guy," said UH special teams coordinator Tyson Helton, "that on kickoff cover, everybody's got their eye on him."
He does everything. He throws 70-yard passes. He runs fake punts (although sometimes coming up short). He blocked a punt this season. He blocks, and tackles, and protects Chad Owens as part of that picket fence.
After the Oct. 12 Nevada game, I wrote that he'd had one of the great wedge-busting days of all time, a bowling ball that made the tackle, too.
Is he as good at this as it looks?
"I'll tell you," said June Jones, "he's had a real good year."
Kapanui should win this award. Or at least someone like him. Kickers are kickers. Special-teams players, like the award's namesake, Tatupu, are a different breed.
And part student of the game, part psycho, Kapanui is the best head-banger of them all.
"He's our star of special teams," Helton said.
Kapanui should be the leading candidate for this award next season. Of course, the problem is that stats never tell the story. And there are no preseason special-teams award candidates. If a guy stands out on special teams, the next year he's a starter.
Helton predicts eventual greatness for Kapanui at linebacker or in the secondary.
But still, this guy seems different. He was born for this. Kapanui has already all but tried every spot twice. Special teams are his position. It's the reason he's been so good, the reason he's consistently come up with plays, big and small, that win games.
"I think it is," Helton said.
If he never quite finds a permanent position, if he never starts a game, his career has already been a successful one.
But then, Kapanui starts every game.
They all begin with a kickoff. And everyone's eyes are on No. 5.
That's what you want in an award candidate. It's what you want in a winner.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com