Moniz Says He's OK, Warrior Replay, UH Offense and Defense

Stephen Tsai talks to Bryant Moniz, who says that's he's fine.

It was initially feared he had suffered a concussion. Yesterday, a UH spokesman said Moniz would be monitored for possible signs of a head injury.

But Moniz yesterday insisted: "I don't have a concussion."

He said he has not experienced headaches, blurry vision or dizziness.

Let's hope he good to go. Tsai has more relatively good injury news:

Later, Bradley reportedly coughed up blood, leading to speculation he had suffered a broken rib. But tests showed that he did not have a rib injury.

"I'm fine," Bradley said. "I fell down on the ball. It's all right."

Right tackle Laupepa Letuli left the game with what is being described as a "strained" calf. The injury is not considered to be serious, and Letuli is expected to start against Army.

Defensive tackle Vaughn Meatoga, who has a strained shoulder, also should be able to play.

Dave Reardon reviews five big plays from the UH-USC game in this week's Warrior Replay article.

Gary Klein of the LA Times reviews the headaches that the UH offense caused USC's defense.

USC failed to produce a consistently strong pass rush, committed numerous penalties that kept drives alive, and missed a substantial number of tackles. The secondary was spinning and middle linebacker Devon Kennard, making his first start, was exploited several times in deep coverage.

Hawaii didn't just pick on the young starters such as freshman cornerback Nickell Robey and sophomore safeties Jawanza Starling and T.J. McDonald. On the first play from scrimmage, quarterback Bryant Moniz went after senior cornerback Shareece Wright.

Even after linebacker Michael Morgan knocked Moniz out of the game with a third-quarter tackle, third-stringer Shane Austin dissected the secondary and passed for two touchdowns. The Warriors' 36 points were the most surrendered by the Trojans in an opener since 1976, when Missouri beat USC, 46-25, at the Coliseum in John Robinson's first game as coach.

Dave Wilson of the ESPN Page 2 blog writes that USC weren't the only ones surprised by Hawaii's pistol formation.

One of the designers of EA Sports' "NCAA 11" video game, Ben Haumiller, said the game's development team, which made a big push this year to represent individual teams' offenses, was shocked by the Warriors' new wrinkles.

"This was a perfect-storm situation for Hawaii. Everyone's gearing up for the run 'n' shoot. That's what they're expected to run," Haumiller said. "They were totally blindsided by it. We were the same way, too. We didn't expect to see this at all."

And Ferd Lewis writes that the UH defense should have enough time to fix its mistakes and beat Army.

As the old coaches' saying goes, teams usually make their biggest improvement from the first week to the second.

And the Warriors will need to if they are to be assignment ready for Army, whose disciplined operation of the triple-option offense has the ability to dine on breakdowns and missed assignments.

The good news is two-fold here: There is nobody else of USC's talent, speed or size left lurking on the regular-season schedule; and the Warriors have shown they can shut down an option offense before and not all that long ago, either. Witness the 24-17 victory over Navy 10 months ago.