Sidelines
UH didn’t make most
of own bowl gameYOU see it in most every bowl game, the tale of two teams. It's clear before opening kickoff, in many of these postseason bonanzas, which outfit is going to win and which is going to lose. One team is happy to be there, clearly, plainly, and plays like it, with the kind of enthusiasm that wins games.
The other typically wanted a better bowl, or is coming off some year-end disappointment, or has lost its focus, never quite adjusting to the bowl schedule, often just passing time until it gets to check in the equipment for another year.
In the Hawaii Bowl, Tulane was happy to be here.
(And on a side note, let's say right now that never again should a bowl committee hold it against Hawaii that UH doesn't travel well or sell thousands of tickets for mainland games. Not after some of the microscopic delegations we've seen this year, including Tulane's.)
Hawaii was too happy to be here.
It was all set up for them. All of it. The script was written. Eleven wins. A big bowl blowout. The bench in the shade, the fifth-place team from Conference USA. And all on national television, with ESPN singing their praises to the world.
This was Hawaii's game, Hawaii's win. Everyone knew it, said it, and it was so.
And the Warriors believed it, a little too much.
They blew it.
The pregame haka backfired, riling Tulane and resulting in an opening onside kick recovered by the Green Wave. You could tell, you could feel it, that was a bad move. Yeah, the Maori dance was great theater, but if you do something like that, especially for the first time, you had better back it up. You had better be prepared to win the game.
The penalties, the discipline. Who is surprised? This always happens. The only difference is everyone overlooks it because Hawaii usually wins. Getting in opponents' faces after every kickoff. Overcelebrating. This is UH football these days, in 2001, 2002. This is Hawaii's style of play.
This is a team that was in a bench-clearing brawl after the Cincinnati game, remember, and never was heard a discouraging word.
Jones gives them a long leash. His camp is loose and laid-back, and he lets his players have fun, and get away with things many coaches wouldn't. He relishes the role, and his record says it often works.
But it looked like the leash was too long this week, and Jones couldn't reel them back in when it counted.
Today, he should be bargaining for a new contract with an 11-win season in his back pocket. His guys should have gotten him this win. He should have had them ready to do so.
But no.
The tale-of-two-teams theory strikes again.
"We realized we took their best shot in the first half," Tulane quarterback J.P. Losman said after the game.
And it seemed like Hawaii knew it too.
Humbled. Hawaii should be humbled now. A lesson was learned, a big one, the hard way. This was their game, their bowl, their win. And UH took the opportunity to lose to Tulane.
Let me write that again.
TULANE.
(On a bright note, this should stop all the talk about teams not wanting to schedule UH. They'll say, "Oh, look, those guys lost to TULANE.")
OK, that's harsh. Tulane is a bowl team with seven wins (now eight) and some decent speed and a few exciting players. They were fun to watch. They made plays. But this team was nowhere near UH's overall level of talent. Tulane was brought in to be an "opponent." Like those guys Brian Viloria beats up.
This was Hawaii's bowl game.
And Tulane wanted it more.
You see it in most every bowl game, and we saw it here. One team goes one way, one team goes another.
Hawaii's coach said it himself -- his team wasn't ready. UH deserved to lose a game that was designed for them to win.
Hawaii didn't stick to the script, and so Tulane tossed it aside as well.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com