Moniz is WAC POTW, Colorado Next

Bryant Moniz was named WAC Offensive Player of the Week. Stephen Tsai gets his reaction.

May I ask you about being named player of the week?

Bryant Moniz: "The player of the week? For our team?"

The WAC. The WAC player of the week.

Moniz: "For the WAC? Daaa-yam. That's pretty cool."

UPDATE: Here's tonight's Chawan's Cut:



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Tsai writes about Spencer Smith's surprise replacement.

In a surprise move, quarterback David Graves has been summoned as the injury replacement for University of Hawaii strong safety Spencer Smith.

Graves is scheduled to arrive today in Las Vegas, where the Warriors are training through Friday in preparation for Saturday's football game against Colorado in Boulder, Colo. Graves will practice as a safety.

"Any way I can go out and help the team, I'll do it," said Graves, who was a receiver and defensive back through his junior year of high school.

McMackin said the move is not permanent.

"He's a quarterback," McMackin said. "I told him we brought him in to be a quarterback. He's on the verge right now. He has time. He's only a freshman."

Dave Reardon writes about the Warriors being underdogs against Colorado.

Ten is still a lot of points for a team that just won to get from one that just got clobbered 52-7.

When I relayed this to Silva, he shook his head - but he smiled, too.

"Sheesh," he said. "But you know what? That's good. That's more motivation for us."

The Warriors will be underdogs for the third time in three games this season. They covered against USC and won outright at Army.

Ferd Lewis writes about Colorado's altitude advantage.

Like the metal tanks often strategically placed in the visitor's locker room with "oxygen" prominently printed on them. Purely in case of emergency, you understand, a CU official contends with a chuckle.

Welcome to 5,345 feet above sea level, as the Buffaloes like to remind opponents. Especially those from the flatlands, such as Saturday's opponent, the University of Hawaii.

But Colorado is coming off a demoralizing loss against California.

Following their 52-7 loss to Cal on Saturday, the Buffs said they need to do the same thing: move on and focus on the next game.

“Water under the bridge,” quarterback Tyler Hansen said. “Forget about it. Let’s go beat Hawaii now.”

“We’ll put it behind us,” running back Rodney Stewart said. “We’ve got to. We have a lot of football left.”

“I guarantee they’re going to watch this film and they’re going to blitz us,” McKnight said. “They have a high, high scoring offense. Offensively, we have to manage the clock a little bit. We can’t go three-and-out and put their offense back on the field or they’re going to put up a ton of points. We have to be able to run the football in order to open up the passing game.”

Colorado head coach Dan Hawkins talks about his impressions of UH.

"Offensively, they're electric," Hawkins said. "They obviously do a good job of throwing it around the yard. Their quarterback. is very fast when he takes off running. I think they have a good, hard, aggressive running game as well. They're electric. On defense they're very sound and very solid.

If you get yourself in bad points either personnel-wise or down and distance, they can give you a lot of things to look at, but they are sort of an electric team."

Colorado's Scout.com site has a UH scouting report.

LOOKING GOOD: The Warriors were expected to have a fearsome passing attack this year with so many returning skill players -- and they haven't disappointed. They have torched USC and Army in the first two games. On Saturday, four wide receivers made at least five catches and three receivers caught touchdown passes.

Ryan Thorburn of the Daily Camera profiles CU assistant coach Brian Cabral, who grew up in Hawaii.

The series means a lot to Cabral, who has always recruited his home state very well and coached some great players from Hawaii, including recent Buff standout Jordon Dizon. The All-American linebacker, who is now a member of the Detroit Lions, used to say hisNo. 1 motivation at CU was "not to disappoint my (position) coach."

Cabral explains what the game of football means to players from Hawaii this way:

"Football on the islands is bigger than life. High school football, Pop Warner football, it`s big. It`s a very physical culture and that`s why they love the game of football. ...

"We`ve brought the right guys to CU. They`re physical players, they love contact, they love the game. That`s why you recruit Polynesian kids, that`s why you recruit Hawaii."

And finally, check out this excellent Colorado Buffaloes fan blog, The Ralphie Report.