When Dae Dae Hunter rushed for 213 yards Saturday, University of Hawaii football fans were left to wonder: “What if?”
What if Hunter and 14 of his UH teammates — many of them starters, including several bonafide stars — had not left the Warriors after last season via the transfer portal and ended up at other FBS programs?
Well, at least Hunter put together that career-best performance in a 41-14 win for Liberty over BYU, a team many Hawaii fans still love to hate.
After watching his postgame interview session, I’m happy for Hunter and the upstart Flames, the independent team that is now 7-1. Liberty is king of the unaffiliated FBS schools after crushing the Cougars, and receiving votes in the AP Top 25 poll.
Still — for Hawaii — what if?
Since the start of conference play, UH lost narrowly at San Diego State, 16-14, and Colorado State, 17-13, sandwiching that solid 31-16 home victory over Nevada two weeks ago.
It’s easy to imagine the Rainbow Warriors as 3-0 in the Mountain West if even just some of the players like Hunter, quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, receiver Nick Mardner and stalwart defenders Darius Muasau, Khoury Bethley and Cameron Lockridge had remained in Manoa to see what 2022 might bring.
And those are just the biggest stars, the biggest names. Other established players and potential future standouts found the exit, too.
I didn’t blame them then for leaving a toxic situation under former coach Todd Graham, and won’t do it now, either.
But it’s hard to ignore that so many outstanding players wearing green and white last season are now spread out all over the country, playing for other teams — especially when Hunter earned a helmet sticker from the ESPN College Football Final crew.
“Yes, no doubt,” UH coach Timmy Chang said. “We look at what those guys are doing and they definitely would have helped. It’s a different football team, just a couple of plays away from two more wins.”
Chang answered with full transparency. Perhaps you’d rather not be reminded about this state of affairs — and, of course, those Warriors who have stuck it out deserve all kinds of credit.
But, in the coming weeks, it will be impossible to ignore what happened, even if you tell yourself that must be some other guy named Dae Dae Hunter crushing it for Liberty. The Warriors are scheduled to play against Lockridge at Fresno State, and then, in the season finale, Cordeiro at San Jose State.
Another transfer from UH, Michael Boyle, helped Colorado State beat Hawaii with a field goal and two extra points Saturday, two weeks after his 43-yarder with no time left gave the Rams their first win of the season, at Nevada. Boyle handled kickoffs in four games for the 2018 Warriors before receiving a medical hardship.
With Matthew Shipley, kicker is one position where UH doesn’t have to think about what if.
This is also a good time to remember what Chang, who was hired at the end of January, after the mass exodus, knows — the transfer portal is not a one-way street. The portal taketh, and the portal giveth.
The Warriors secondary was hit especially hard by graduation and early departures. But, since arriving at Manoa this year, Meki Pei (Washington), Virdell Edwards II (Iowa State), JoJo Forest (Oregon State), Malik Hausman (Arizona) and Kaulana Makaula (USC) all have shown why they were at Power Five conference programs.
There’s a narrative that says since players no longer have to sit out a season after transferring the portal turns smaller schools like UH into farm teams for the bigger programs.
This doesn’t have to be the case, especially for Hawaii. Many talented high school players from here have gone to elite programs out of high school but returned to the islands and played at UH, for various reasons — even if they had to sit out a year. Makaula (Punahou) and Pei (‘Iolani), thanks to the new portal rules, didn’t have to.
Another Hunter, first name Wayne, is an example from Chang’s playing days. The Radford graduate started off at Cal but came home and helped anchor UH’s offensive line, leading to a 10-year NFL career.
One of the good things about recruiting bounce-backs who want to come home? They might have reasons to return that outweigh even a really bad stadium situation with a resolution date no one knows.
Meanwhile, the Warriors will do the best they can with who they have and what they have.
“The guys that left, that hurt,” Chang said. “But it also helped grow the roster, and helped give a lot of guys a chance to grow up faster.”
PLAYERS WHO TRANSFERRED OUT TO FBS SCHOOLS
NAME POS YR SCHOOL
O’Tay Baker DL Sr Tarleton State
Khoury Bethley DB Sr Arizona State
Chevan Cordeiro QB Jr San Jose State
Donovan Dalton DB Sr Oregon
Tru Edwards WR Jr Louisiana Tech
Kilohana Haasenritter RB Fr Oregon
Dae Dae Hunter RB Jr Liberty
Jonah Laulu DL Sr Oklahoma
Cameron Lockridge DB Sr Fresno State
Nick Mardner WR Sr Cincinnati
Zacchaeus McKinney DL Sr Texas State
Darius Muasau LB Sr UCLA
Justus Tavai DL Sr San Diego State
Dayton Toney WR Fr Incarnate Word
Solo Turner DB Jr Illinois
FBS PLAYERS WHO TRANSFERRED IN
McKenzie Barnes DB Jr Arizona
Cammon Cooper QB Jr Washington State
Steele Dubar LB Jr Colorado
Virdel Edwards II DB Jr Iowa State
Andrew Faoliu LB Sr Oregon
Luke Felix-Fualalo OL Jr Utah
JoJo Forest DB Jr Oregon State
Malik Hausman DB Sr Arizona
Wynden Ho‘ohuli DL Fr Nebraska
Devyn King DB Jr Maryland
Solomon Landrum LS Jr Mississippi
Kaulana Makaula DB Jr USC
Micah Mariteragi OL Sr Virginia
Meki Pei DB So Washington
Anthony Sagapolutele DL So UNLV
Mataio Soli DL Sr Arkansas
Joey Yellen QB Jr Pittsburgh
