UH News from Around the Nation

Lots of great exposure for UH as the media discusses the AP Top 25. Here's a short clip from ESPN, posted by UHBows:



Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com writes an article on Colt Brennan, who's getting some extra instruction from June Jones in anticipation of the upcoming season and the NFL draft afterwards.

Jones believes that Brennan is far from average. And he believes that Brennan will have an advantage when he goes to the NFL next year because defenses blitz him from the time he runs out of the dressing room to the moment the game is over.

"I mean, we see every blitz," Jones said. "We see everything imaginable in the years he has spent with us. He has seen it over and over and knows what to do."

But just in case, Jones has begun tutoring Brennan not only on the run-and-shoot that he will need this season, but what he will need in the NFL next season and beyond. That is the double major in football.

"He's already teaching me [defensive] fronts, ways to break down fronts, stuff I just never needed to know to be in this offense," Brennan said of his head coach. "Instead of film [sessions with Jones] being 30 or 40 minutes, it's now an hour and five [minutes], where I'm getting a lesson on stuff I never knew before."

In another article, Maisel predicts that Hawaii will be in a BCS game if they go undefeated.

If Hawaii runs the table, it will win a BCS bid even though the Warriors play two I-AA opponents. There's something to be said for where you start the race. Quarterback Colt Brennan has earned enough respect to get the voters' attention, and Hawaii's toughest games are in the back half of the schedule.

Maisel also thinks Colt will be a Heisman finalist. Let's hope Maisel is psychic.

======

Brian Murphy of the Idaho Statesman think that WAC players have no chance of winning a Heisman.

The chances of Johnson or Brennan winning the Heisman are only slightly better than my chance to hoist the trophy in New York. If the WAC superstars want to be in New York City in December, they're going to have to buy a ticket.

And it has nothing to do with Johnson or Brennan. Each is a fantastic player. Each is likely to put up the requisite stats that a Heisman Trophy winner needs.

Unfortunately, neither is likely to win or play for a national title. Unfortunately, the flawed process for determining the winner isn't going to be magically fixed this year.

Gotta agree. Everything has to fall in place, even for an invitation.

On the other hand, the Heisman talk brings great publicity to the conference and the schools. Chadd Cripe of The Idaho Statesman writes about the Heisman hype for Colt Brennan and Ian Johnson, even as both players don't think they have a shot at winning, nor are they focusing on it.

"It's a great honor and something I'd definitely want to be a part of," Brennan said. "But I'm not going to work for a Heisman Trophy. Last year we didn't try to break records. It's about having fun and winning."

Neither player gives himself much of a chance to win the Heisman, in part because of what happened with Brennan last year.

If 58 touchdown passes isn't good enough, they wonder, what is?

At least the WAC coaches know what they have to deal with:

"He's got an awesome feel for the game," said Petersen, a former college quarterback and quarterbacks coach. "He's kind of a step ahead of everybody else out there in terms of anticipating where the ball needs to go. And he's elusive to go along with it."

Tomey calls Brennan's 2006 statistics "obscene."

"Colt may well be the best quarterback in the country to me," Tomey said. "… He just gets the ball out really quickly, and he's tough."

======

And earlier this week, Terry Bowden and Hawaii's own Larry Beil discussed this year's non-BCS contenders for a BCS bowl game in this Yahoo Sports video.