With the season opener 10 days away, the University of Hawaii football team has narrowed its quarterback competition to three.
Following Tuesday’s practice, the 16th of training camp, head coach Nick Rolovich confirmed third-year sophomore Cole McDonald and true freshmen Chevan Cordeiro and Jeremy Moussa are finalists for the No. 1 quarterback’s job.
Those three took all the reps in team drills on Tuesday. Kolney Cassel, a graduate transfer from Sacramento State, and second-year freshman Justin Uahinui took “mental” reps during the scrimmage-like sessions. UH opened training camp with seven quarterbacks on the roster. But Tanner Darling, a transfer from Moorpark College, moved to wideout. Larry Tuileta, a senior, has been training with the men’s national volleyball team. Tuileta is expected to be on the roster for the Pan Am Games.
Rolovich said McDonald, Cordeiro and Moussa have “all done really good things. They’ve been up and down. But they continue to push each other and get better.”
Rolovich added that “we’ve got three to four guys we can win games with (at quarterback). But that’s not really how you want to monitor this season.”
The Warriors have been able to provide extensive work for the quarterbacks with expanded passing drills, as well as sometimes running two huddles simultaneously.
“Some of the things we’ve done in practice have gotten them more reps than they would have gotten if we had one huddle,” Rolovich said. “It’s helped the receivers, too.”
The Warriors’ air time is expected to increase with the resurrection of the run-and-shoot offense this season. With the hybrid offense the past two seasons, the Warriors threw on 49 percent of the plays. When Rolovich was UH’s offensive coordinator for four seasons through 2011, the Warriors passed 62.4 percent of the time.
The class standings do not appear to be a hindrance in the quarterback competition. Moussa completed work on his high school diploma early and enrolled at UH in January. Cordeiro joined last month, but he came from a Saint Louis School system that employed the run-and-shoot.
“The teammates see the talent they have,” Rolovich said. “Everybody on this team wants to win. They want to play with the guy who can help get it done. (Cordeiro and Moussa) came in here with a purpose.”