UH in '08

ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg profiles the 2008 UH football team as they move ahead with the loss of key players, coaches, administrators, etc.

Such flux usually signals a slump, and the common opinion, at least on the mainland, is that Hawaii will be starting over this fall. McMackin doesn't buy it.

"We're the defending WAC champions, and that's how we're going to play," he said. "We lost some good players, but we have some good players in our program, and we have some good recruits to complement the guys that we lost.

"I'm really excited about this football team. We just have to build our personality."

Rittenberg also talks to Tyler Graunke and Adam Leonard, and to athletic director Jim Donovan about the facilities, which got a lot of national attention last year.

"A lot of times it takes something negative to turn into a positive," Donovan said. "Even though there was a lot of focus on the facilities and there was some negative publicity and stuff, it becomes the catalyst for the [state] legislature, the university, the donors, to step forward and make things much better than they were. We're seeing that starting to happen."

Hawaii is in the process of installing a new turf practice field -- "It's definitely getting done," Donovan said -- and wants to move the football offices to refurbished space. Donovan's long-term goals include improvements to the locker rooms, equipment rooms, training rooms and weight rooms.