Hawaii vs Idaho Newspaper Wrap-Ups

Stephen Tsai's wrap-up highlights how the Warriors set up Ross Dickerson's opening kickoff return for a touchdown. It also has this passage about Dickerson being numbah one supa cool.

Dickerson also showed his leadership before the game. Dickerson started the first three games at right wideout, but moved to right slotback as an injury replacement for Ryan Grice-Mullins. With Grice-Mullins prepared to return last night, Jones decided to rotate Grice-Mullins and Dickerson. But Jones had difficulty coming up with an order.

Grice-Mullins wanted Dickerson to start, but Dickerson refused, and ordered Grice-Mullins to open at right slotback.

"I wanted him to go in there, but he kept insisting and insisting," Grice-Mullins said. "I had no choice. He took the leadership role and made me go in."

Brennan said: "Ross gave up his starting position to let Ryan play. I'm a big karma guy. I believe what goes around comes around. I think when Ross did that, he set the tone for us. He showed we're a team. He made a personal sacrifice to help us reach our team goals. That means a lot."

After that, the Warriors could not be stopped.

What a great guy. Jason Kaneshiro has more on the kickoff return.

The touchdown return was UH's first since Dickerson went the length of the field in his debut as a Warrior against Appalachian State in 2003.

"We've been close all year," UH special teams assistant Dennis McKnight said. "The kids up front have been busting their butts and we were fortunate tonight. Every guy got their guy and Ross made a great run.

Advertiser writer Kalani Takase writes about it as well.

His only regret was not getting another chance. "I was feeling it," he said. "If they had kicked it to me, the way my team was blocking for me, we would have had another one."

He admitted the unit may have fed off the pre-game introductions. "It made the team recognize that the kickoffs and kick return and everything on special teams is important," he said. UH usually introduces either the starting offense or defense.

McKnight recognized the importance of the return as well. "There's an invisible guy out there on the field: Mr. Momentum, and it's up to special teams to get him on the sideline, then the offense and defense to keep him there," he said.

I just hope that teams don't avoid kicking to him the rest of the year!

Leila Wai writes about the beneficiary of Dickerson's generosity, Ryan Grice-Mullins, who was grateful to be back.

Returning to the field for the first time in more than a month, Grice-Mullins scored two touchdowns as Hawai'i defeated Idaho, 68-10, in a Western Athletic Conference game at Aloha Stadium last night.

Grice-Mullins scored touchdowns of 18 and 34 yards, catching five passes for 83 yards. His two scores doubled the amount of touchdowns he had previously this season.

"Words can't explain it right now. And getting the win on top of that? I can't explain it," he said. "Just being back with the boys, playing around, out there playing and running around and scoring and celebrating, I can't explain it."

Good to see him speeding towards various end zones like normal.

Dave Reardon's wrap-up has a pretty funny quote from Colt Brennan, along with praise from his coaches:

"We're going to take what we can get. We're not going to try to force big plays," Brennan said. "We come into every game worried and ready for whatever they're going to throw at us. We're not walking into every game expecting a blowout and getting 35 or 40 at halftime. We walk in thinking its going to be a four-quarter battle and then we find ourselves sitting in the fourth quarter kind of bored."

Jones and UH quarterbacks coach Dan Morrison both said they've never seen anything close to Brennan's performance over the course of this many games.

"I think consistency's the main thing for him," Morrison said. "It's very rare to have a guy be that consistent for that long. He's very special."

I hope Colt Brennan gets bored in the 4th quarter the rest of the season. The good news is that would mean more of The Graunke. The bad news is that Colt won't be throwing for 600 yards and 8 touchdowns a game. The UH defense is hurting Colt's statistics!

Wai, Takase and Ferd Lewis write about last night's defensive performance, including Jacob Patek's big hit.

The defense gave up 334 yards of total offense and limited the Vandals to just 10 points.

In addition, UH knocked out its sixth opposing quarterback this season.

On fourth-and-10 from the Hawai'i 36-yard line, Idaho signal-caller Steve Wichman scrambled out of the pocket to his left before being crunched by Hawai'i strong safety Jake Patek.

"All I remember is seeing him scrambling and in my peripheral vision I saw the receivers, I guess, trying to cut block me. Then (Wichman) cut outside, I had to change directions and I got him," said Patek, a junior from Victoria, Texas.

"It's not like we're trying to knock him out," Patek explained. "We're just full speed to the ball and everybody's trying to get in on a tackle."

It was a great hit from out of nowhere. I hope someone posts it online.

The article also talks about the debut of kicker Briton Forester.

Fans weren't the only ones surprised when freshman kicker Briton Forester marched out on the field for the extra-point following Ross Dickerson's 100-yard opening kickoff return.

"(The coaches) were contemplating it during the week, but I just found out before the game," said the San Diego native.

The Warriors have had problems with PATs throughout the season and Forester was called upon as a solution.

"Coach just likes to get the ball up on the PATs and I guess I get a little bit more height on it than (Dan) Kelly does," Forester said.

Well, judging from the past few weeks, I'm not sure if any game the rest of this season will be close, but just in case, UH definitely needs to get some consistency in the kicking game. Snappers, holders and now kickers have been replaced or shuffled around this season. And there were two missed or muffed PATs last night. I hope the breakdowns will be eventually wiped out. Otherwise, 2 point conversions from here on out!

The Star-Bulletin's Football Notebook has more on the Patek hit as well as Forester's debut as well as injury reports on Keala Watson and Renolds Fruean.

Defensive end Keala Watson was helped off the field after he was down for about 5 minutes with what appeared to be a left knee injury late in the third quarter.

The sophomore from Nanakuli was optimistic with the early diagnosis.

"It's cartilage, so it might not be so bad," he said.

He was scheduled to undergo an MRI today.

Watson was replaced by Renolds Fruean, who re-injured an ankle he'd sprained earlier this season two plays after Watson left the field.

Watson had started in place of Ikaika Alama-Francis, who did not practice during the week due to back spasms. Alama-Francis could have played if necessary, defensive line coach Jeff Reinebold said.

Sounds like it's better news for Keala Watson than it looked. He was down for a long time and couldn't even put any pressure on the leg when he was helped out. Hope the MRIs turn out negative.

Nick Abramo writes that Idaho coach Dennis Erickson came away from the game impressed with Hawaii.

"That's an awfully good football team," Vandals coach Dennis Erickson said. "And we played terrible. It wasn't so much about getting hit as getting beat.

"(UH defensive coordinator) Jerry (Glanville) has done a nice job. They're a lot better on defense than they've been. It's the defensive side that makes them a good football team, a balanced team."

Erickson didn't try to explain the Vandals' poor performance against the UH offense. That's because he couldn't explain it.

"If I knew what was going on, it wouldn't have happened," Erickson said. "I don't have an answer for 68-10. If someone does, please let me in on it.

"We knew they were a good football team, but we made them awfully good. (Colt) Brennan was on all the time. In all my years of coaching college football, I don't know if I've seen an offense as productive as this one."

That's some high praise. I hope teams won't be too scared to play us down the road. And that leads us to a great column from Ferd Lewis, entitled "Secure the '07 foes now"

"I mean, with the way we've been playing lately, I don't think anybody is going to want to come out and play us next year," said UH quarterback Colt Brennan said after tossing five touchdowns for the fifth time in six weeks and the Warriors (6-2) claimed sole possession of second place in the Western Athletic Conference at 4-1. "Especially here, at home."

UH's eight-game WAC schedule for 2007 is a given. And Nevada-Las Vegas is signed on for one non-conference game, but with four more non-league games still to be announced for the 13-game schedule, you hope UH is sitting on a stack of signed, sealed and already-delivered contracts for next season and just hasn't gotten around to publicizing it.

God, I hope Herman Frazier has some games already under contract. And I hope it's against good teams. But like Ferd goes on to write, Michigan State is already trying to weasel their way out of next year's contracted game. But then again, it's MSU. Let's hope we don't end up having to play multiple Division I-AA games next year! Bring on BYU, bring on Texas Tech, bring on Alabama, bring on Washington, hell, even Stanford or Temple!

Well, Herman's supposed to make an announcement in the next couple weeks, so we'll see what the news is. In any case, there is the rest of this season to play, and Kalani Simpson, like many UH fans nowadays, thinks the Warriors are on a roll. Kalani, how hot are they?

They're so hot, if you find any typos it's because I looked directly at it, instead of using one of those eclipse-watching things. (My corneas!)

Hawaii opened the game with a kickoff return for a touchdown -- 100 yards!

They're so hot the special teams guys are stars now, sticking people, earning aaaahhhs!, all but taking bows after plays. The kickoff team is so hot kicker Dan Kelly is out there talking trash, too.

UH was so hot Idaho can have the play snuffed out -- stuffing a would-be shovel to Nate Ilaoa -- only to see Colt Brennan pull the ball back, and gallop for 23 yards. (They're so hot Brennan comes out of the game because he's tired from all that running, and Tyler Graunke goes in to complete two straight -- the second a 20-yard pass to Ryan Grice-Mullins, which causes assistant coach Dennis McKnight to sprint 20 yards onto the field for a high five.)

Hawaii is so hot you have to wear SPF 30 if you sit in the front row.

Nice. Right now, this team is unstoppable. Let's run the table the rest of the way! GO WARRIORS!!!!