UH at Idaho Wrap-Ups

The Advertiser has a scoring breakdown and game stats.

Dave Reardon writes about the motivation the UH defense took into this game.

Most of the Hawaii defensive players had never heard of Craig James before Friday night. Greg McMackin made sure they did before yesterday's 48-20 victory at Idaho.

The former SMU star running back became a part of the UH defensive coordinator's game plan when McMackin heard about negative comments James made about the Warriors defense during the Thursday night Boise State-Southern Miss telecast.

James, now an analyst with ESPN, said the UH defense is inferior, and that he knocked the No. 19 Warriors out of his Top 25 for that reason. McMackin passed that on to his players Friday and they took it to heart yesterday. They shut down the Vandals' running game and picked off five Nathan Enderle passes, returning two for touchdowns.

UPDATE: Forgot to include Ferd Lewis' column on McMackin's reaction to the comments.

Stephen Tsai writes that Colt Brennan tweaked his ankle again during the game.

In the first quarter, Brennan "rolled" the ankle. He opted to continue playing. But the injury made it difficult to push off on his right foot. Two of his interceptions came when he threw off the back foot. Two others were initially tipped.

"(The Vandals) made some good plays, and I wasn't myself," Brennan said. "I didn't do the best job of capitalizing when I had the opportunities. It was a weird, wacky thing. We played that poorly on offense, and we still crushed them. That shows how good this team is."

Ferd Lewis talks to the coaches about Colt's injury.

Quarterbacks coach Dan Morrison said the injured ankle caused Brennan "not to be able to do some of the things he normally does as well. But it is something he's going to have to work through and he's a tough kid."

But Morrison said, "even with it, he made some unbelievable throws at times. He made a couple across the field to Davone (Bess) that, I mean, had to be put right where they were. There was no other place — and he did it."

Jones added: "A lot of (the problems) came when he was moving around. That's when you feel it. When he was able to get set he made some good throws. Take away the 2 or 3 balls that were tipped and he played a pretty good game. But he's tough on himself. He's his own worst critic."

Also from the article:

• June Jones talks about Malcolm Lane's performance.


• Blaze Soares finally got to play, but didn't record any tackles.


• Ryan Mouton's knee was sore after the game and may get an MRI.

Dave Reardon highlights the performance of Kealoha Pilares.

"I was just trying to make the first guy miss and get in the open field," Pilares said. "The field was kind of soft and hard to cut on."

Pilares repeated the UH running backs' mantra that their first job is to block -- that's especially true now with Brennan dealing with rehabbing a sprained right ankle.

Also from the article:

• Colt talks about bouncing back from the 5-INT performance.


• Malcolm Lane talks about burning, and then getting tackled in the endzone by Stanley Franks.


• Ryan Mouton's knee injury is not to the same knee as last week.


• Adam Leonard talks about lobbying June Jones to put him in as a fullback in goal-line situations. Speaking of which...

Ferd Lewis talks to coach Jones about putting Leonard in on offense.

"He talked about that last week," Jones said. "He's got some running ability."

Would Jones let the 6-foot, 236-pounder make the move?

"Naw."

Doh!

Kalani Simpson's final column is a great one, profiling Kalaheo QB and son of Fred, Cody vonAppen.

And finally, some Warriors like yogurt.