University of Hawaii football player Dylan Collie can count on one hand the number of times he could not count on his hands.
But in Saturday’s 41-21 loss to UNLV, Collie dropped three passes, including one on fourth down.
"I was pretty disappointed in myself," said Collie, who entered with two drops in 51 passes thrown his way in the first nine games. "There were a lot of questions running through my head and a lot of doubt. I was doubting: Where was my head at and trying to figure out what happened that night."
After the game, he received group texts from his brothers — former NFL receivers Austin and Zac Collie. The message: "We’ve all been there. We’ve all had those days. If you have a bad night, you need to be accountable for that."
During a team meeting in the athletic complex auditorium, interim head coach Chris Naeole showed the video of the entire UNLV game. The touchdowns, the big hits, the missed tackles and the drops. Then Collie was summoned to the front of the room. From the third row, Naeole fired a football toward Collie, who easily made the catch.
Then Naeole asked the players and coaches: "Do you trust Dylan to catch the ball?"
There was a resounding yell of: "Yes!"
"To hear that response, and to know everyone’s got my back, and I trust everybody else, I’ve got to be accountable," Collie said. "Was Saturday a good day for me? No. Absolutely not. It was awful. But it’s a matter of bouncing back and knowing I’ve got the quarterback’s trust, and I’ve got the coaches’ trust."
On Tuesday, the freshman lived up to a promise he said he would keep the rest of his UH career. He caught 100 extra passes.
"I love this team and I love this school and I love this state," Collie said. "I’m not going to back down. I’m going to work harder and catch the extra 100 balls at practice every day. That’s to make sure I don’t ever have those drops ever again."
It is a dedication to football that Collie has harbored since he was 7. When he was 10, Collie joined his father and older brothers in a family workout involving tennis balls. They aligned 7 yards from a machine that spit out tennis balls at 40 mph. The goal was to catch 50 balls in a row to advance to the next set. Drop a ball, and the streak is reset to zero. There were 10 sets per workout.
"You want to catch 500 balls," Collie said.
There was the turn drill, when he would spin 180 degrees to catch a tennis ball. Sometimes he would stand at an angle to make over-the-shoulder catches. Sometimes he would wear strobe goggles that flickered lights in his eyes, a technique designed to improve concentration.
"When you can focus on catching something as little as a tennis ball, you can catch something as big as a football," Collie said.
Collie adheres to advice from his father, brothers and coaches. "Repetition is what makes you good," Collie said. "The more opportunities you have to run routes, the better you’ll be."
Collie, 22, transferred to UH in January after redshirting at Brigham Young and serving a two-year church mission in Virginia. Since arriving in Hawaii, he has made two commitments — to Savannah Ellison, his fiancee, and to the Rainbow Warriors.
"I came here because Coach (Norm) Chow recruited me," Collie said of the head coach who was fired on Nov. 1, "but through that relationship, I’ve gained relationships with others here and I’ve gained a relationship with this place. I love it here. Me and my fiancee love it here. We’re here for the long haul. I’m a Rainbow Warrior. That’s what I am, and that will never change."