It’s Hawaii-BYU week. Actually, we should call it Hawaii-BYU weak since the teams are going into the season-ender at Aloha Stadium on Saturday with just three wins apiece. Much better things were expected from both in 2017.
UH broke a five-year slump of consecutive losing seasons in 2016. And after it went 7-7, including the program’s first bowl game win in 10 years, prognosticators picked Hawaii to come in second in the West division of the Mountain West Conference this fall. Instead, the Rainbow Warriors finished league play at 1-7, ahead of only San Jose State (0-7) in the six-team division.
BYU finished the 2016 season with five straight wins to go 9-4. That included a 24-21 victory against Wyoming in the Poinsettia Bowl. About the same or better was expected this season; three of five Athlon writers polled picked the Cougars to go 10-3, and the other two said 8-5 and 9-4.
Another thing they have in common is second-year head coaches, Nick Rolovich and Kalani Sitake. The honeymoons are over, and both have some tough decisions to make in the offseason involving their staffs.
For one, Rolovich needs to decide if he’s going to keep calling the plays, which he has done in recent games, keep Brian Smith as offensive coordinator, have passing game coordinator Craig Stutzmann more involved in play-calling, or bring in an entirely new OC.
UH went through most of the season short one full-time coach, as offensive line mentor Chris Naeole and the program parted ways days before the Oct. 7 game at Nevada.
Some say that was the season’s turning point. But if we’re looking for a singular moment on why things went wrong for UH, two others loom larger.
First was the Sept. 23 game at Wyoming. Hawaii frittered away opportunities to land a huge road win in the conference opener and lost 28-21 in overtime.
The other occurred, strangely enough, during UH’s only conference win. Sophomore John Ursua, who was leading the nation in receiving, was lost for the season to injury early in the Warriors’ 37-26 victory over the Spartans.
The offense hasn’t been the same, averaging 11.3 points in the four games since — all losses. In the six games prior to Ursua’s injury, Hawaii averaged 27.5 points.
A battered offensive line and the unavailability of tight end ’Tui Unga also hasn’t helped.
BYU’s problems also involved injuries and a lack of offensive firepower. The Cougars are on their fourth quarterback in walk-on freshman Joe Critchlow. Its defense performed admirably, but BYU lost 16-10 last Saturday … at home … on senior day … to UMass.
Yes, that’s the same UMass that Hawaii beat 38-35 on the road to start the season back in August. Looking at all common opponents BYU and UH are both 2-3.
This is one of those years where it’s more interesting to look at the archives.
In the 2001 encounter, Hawaii crushed BYU 72-45. Rolovich was UH’s quarterback then, and he threw more touchdown passes (eight) in that game than this year’s Rainbows have in the past five (seven).
BYU won the six matchups before that and the three after — including a 41-20 result in 2011, which was Rolovich’s last game as UH’s offensive coordinator before Norm Chow replaced Greg McMackin as head coach and Rolovich started a four-year stint running Nevada’s offense.
When Chow was hired at UH, Sitake’s name was mentioned as a candidate for defensive coordinator. Some of his childhood was spent in Laie, and he played fullback at BYU when Chow was offensive coordinator there in the late 1990s. Chow and Sitake had just coached together at Utah in 2011.
Obviously, that never materialized. But Sitake, who missed the 2001 pounding by a year, is here now.
So is his offensive coordinator, Ty Detmer.
Detmer won the Heisman Trophy as the Cougars’ quarterback on Dec. 1, 1990. Later that evening, visiting BYU was routed 59-28 by UH, with the Rainbows’ Kenny Harper picking off three of Detmer’s passes.
Things didn’t go the way the Warriors or Cougars had hoped this year. But when they meet, there’s always the history.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads Opens in a new tab
