Work starts for Warriors

Warriors won't let polls bother them

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The relatively easy part is over.

After Saturday's 52-37 win over Utah State, Hawaii is 6-0 through the first half of its football season. Things get tougher for the Warriors just four days from now at San Jose.

Tomey will try to pump up his Spartans to knock 16th-ranked Hawaii (6-0, 3-0 WAC) out of the national picture. And despite a slow start in nonconference play, the Spartans (3-3, 2-0) still have a stake in the conference chase.

Warriors quarterback Colt Brennan, knocked out of Saturday's game late in the second quarter, said his gimpy ankle won't keep him out of this one.

"I'll be ready, there's no doubt about that," said Brennan, who took a recruiting visit to the Silicon Valley two years ago before enrolling at UH.

"(Utah State) played tough. Coach (June) Jones felt these guys would rise up. These teams come in with nothing to lose and they play pretty well. But what matters is we controlled the game by the third or fourth quarter and were up by a comfortable margin and got a good victory."

Tyler Graunke completed his first nine passes, including three touchdowns, in relief of Brennan.

"I definitely think I could've pushed it and played on it in the second half," Brennan said. "But I think the way the game played out it was better to rest it. We have a bye week after San Jose State, so it's kind of like this week is all or nothing."

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The skeptics are out in force now, and some of them vote in the polls -- two of which help determine the postseason fate of Hawaii football if UH manages to run the table and go 12-0.

It's no secret the Warriors could go unbeaten and still not make it into a BCS bowl game. That point was reinforced when the rankings came out yesterday and UH had dropped a notch in the coaches poll while holding steady in the other two; Hawaii is a semi-sweet 16 in all three.

A 52-37 victory over Utah State at home Saturday pushed UH up to 6-0 and 3-0 in the Western Athletic Conference, but wasn't impressive enough to elevate them in the big picture that included top 10 teams USC, Wisconsin and Kentucky falling from the unbeatens. In the experts' eyes, one or two losses in their robust schedules are roughly equivalent to -- or even better than -- the Warriors' consumption of the half-dozen cupcakes they've played.

Coach June Jones says he isn't concerned with any of that yet, and after the game he tried to sell Utah State as better than its 0-6 record, and the Warriors remain steady as she goes on course to their lofty goals.

"Six-0 is a good spot for us. I thought we did a lot of good things," Jones said. "Utah State should have beat UNLV. ... They played Oklahoma."

It's clear though, that the tough half of the marathon is the second one.

The tests become sterner this week, as the Warriors play at San Jose State on Friday, a date former UH coach Dick Tomey has certainly had circled since the WAC released its schedule.

Then it's New Mexico State, Fresno State, at Nevada, Boise State and Washington. One loss, at least up to the Boise State game, and the Warriors can kiss the Top 25 goodbye.

Jones said Saturday's 15-point victory margin was misleading.

"We played a lot of guys," he said. "Our second defense gave up a lot of yards in the fourth quarter. But we did enough defensively. Michael (Lafaele) is hard to replace. We didn't adjust quite as well as we should have."

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Hawaii linebacker Solomon Elimimian took down Utah State quarterback Leon Jackson III for one of his 20 tackles in Saturday's game. Elimimian is third in the nation with 12.4 per game.

"Of course we need Mike," linebacker Solomon Elimimian said. "I bet if we had Mike the (Utah State) score would be less than it was.

"But I think that team really wanted to beat us. I think we underestimated them. We learned a lesson tonight that teams like this can be more dangerous than ranked teams because they've got nothing to lose."

Elimimian held up his end with a career-high 20 tackles, putting him third in the nation with 12.4 stops per game (Waimea graduate Jordon Dizon of Colorado is first at 13.0).

UH is first in the nation in scoring with 53.85 points per game.

Also, on the strength of Malcolm Lane's 87-yard TD, Hawaii leads the nation in kickoff returns, averaging 30.13 yards per runback.

And the fans pining for the days of Jerry Glanville coordinating the defense may not have taken into consideration that UH is ranked 27th in defense with 320.83 yards yielded per game.

Also, the Warriors proved again they could win without quarterback Colt Brennan, as Tyler Graunke stepped up with a 9-for-11, three-TD passing performance when Brennan again had his sprained ankle re-injured.

Brennan said he'll be ready to play at San Jose State. It will be hard to keep Lafaele out, too. Mouton will try, but will likely need at least one more week for his knee to heal up.

"We've got a bye after next week, so there's no reason for us not to be totally focused and prepared," Brennan said.

Hawaii played the entire game without its best defensive player and arguably its most talented (cornerback Ryan Mouton), and more than half of it without its best offensive player. What would the score have been if Utah State didn't have Kevin Robinson, Leon Jackson III and Paul Igboeli?

The pollsters don't care, and the stats are inflated by two wipeouts of Division I-AA teams. The players are happy they escaped with a win and the opportunity to continue to chase their goals.

"It was a good, hard-fought win," defensive end Karl Noa said. "Props to Utah State. They came to play."