Ohana Festival Wrap-Ups

Michael Tsai writes about all the fans who came out to watch practice and get autographs. A great experience for these young fans:

Seven-year-old Justin Davis stood expectantly at the front of that line with a football.

He had attended his first UH football game last November when the Warriors defeated Purdue 42-35 behind Brennan's 434 yards and three touchdowns.

"It got him fired up and now he wants to go to every game," said Lynn Davis, Justin's mother.

Thirty-year-old Jennifer Stevens and her son Jeremy, 9, arrived a few minutes late and found themselves 100 yards and at least an hour back in line for a Brennan autograph.

...

And why does Jeremy like Brennan?

"Who?" Jeremy said.

"The UH player you always watch," Stevens reminded.

"Oh," Jeremy said. "He's my favorite player."

Kalani Simpson thought Brennan signed autographs with aplomb. Simpson asked Brennan about how being in Hawaii has made him a better person.

"I think for me, I came here in kind of such crisis in my life, at a time when I was in such crisis, and just trying to grow up and become a man, and mature and everything," he said after practice that day. "I came here kind of as still a kid, I was still growing up.

"And now I feel kind of like I've had a couple years where I've been kind of in the spotlight, and really have grown up a lot. And as I've been growing up, I just like the person -- kind of the morals and the values that Hawaii has, that's good about it, I kind of like those. I'm really just enjoying the person I'm becoming out here in Hawaii. Not just only as a football player, but as a person as well."

Right on.

Jason Kaneshiro writes about the Warriors' progress on the field.

"We got done what we set out to do this spring, looked at a lot of guys," Jones said. "We wanted to make sure we gave everybody an opportunity."

With Greg McMackin returning to take over defensive coordinator duties at the start of the spring, implementing a new scheme was also one of the top priorities.

"We've got in more than we did the first time I was here," said McMackin, who coached the UH defense in 1999. "These guys are really smart players and have done a great job of picking up things. I'm really excited about this bunch. I threw a lot at them."

"We got everything done that was on the agenda, and even more than what Coach wanted to put in because we handled it so well," said safety Jacob Patek, who had two interceptions during 7-on-7 drills last night. "I think we're going to start off on the right foot and build from there."

Stephen Tsai has more details of the defense Greg McMackin is implementing.

Most of all, the Warriors embraced McMackin's multi-blitz approach. The Warriors might blitz on every play, even if the intent is not to hunt the quarterback. McMackin's schemes also call for run-stopping blitzes.

"We're going to go 11 up and go after some people," McMackin said.

McMackin said he developed the philosophy when he was Miami's defensive coordinator in the 1990s.

"That came from Jimmy Johnson, trying to get the fastest guys on the field to make plays," McMackin said. "Size is the big thing for our two tackles, but everything else is speed. And our tackles can run, too. The main thing is coach (June) Jones allows us to blitz, which a lot of coaches don't."

I'm very very excited to see how well the UH defense does this year.

GO WARRIORS!!!!