The Fall (And Rise) of the Hawaii Warriors
Published January 05, 2008
I was impressed by the Georgia Bulldogs and not at all surprised at how they handled our team. I thought we'd put up a much bigger fight, but I'm not surprised at all that we lost the game. Georgia will probably get some first place votes when the final polls come out and deserve to be in the conversation when talking about the best team in the nation.
(Although I was disheartened by some bush league activity displayed by their head coach such as challenging a first down by Hawaii while being comfortably ahead and throwing the ball in the red zone on fourth down when the game was in their back pocket. I don't know much about their coach, but he looked like a smug jerk. He seemed to be arrogantly smirking during almost the entire game. It should be noted that the announcers said that he was a good man, while they agreed that those calls were questionable.)
Georgia deserves all the credit in the world for their Sugar Bowl victory and I must take my hat off to them. I just don't want people to forget about Hawaii. I know we, the fans, haven't. We will never forget. This past year provided us with so much pride and joy and I hope some of you on the mainland got to experience some of that. The season is over and our wildest hopes and dreams are done with, but the Warrior spirit is alive and well.
- The Fall (And Rise) of the Hawaii Warriors
- Published: January 05, 2008
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Sports
- Filed Under: Sports: Football (American)
- Writer: Jonathan Medina
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Its a long hard road to build a good football program and Georgia has been at it for much longer than Hawaii has even been a state. They had a fantastic season but the schedule that they played did not prepare them for the type of team my Dawgs had that night.
Mark Richt is a fine man and certainly not a jerk. He has never been one to try to humiliate a team once he had the game at hand. You, yourself said that Hawaii had the potential to come back from great deficits even in the 4th quarter. Also, complaining about a team trying to score smacks a little like sour grapes.
They had a hell of a great year . They caught a pissed off "G" team with something to prove . Look at the sooners .... do you think O.U. belongs in the BCS ? That Island team will be back if June stays and with better players ... I am impressed by them .... blow outs just happen .. jmho
Coach Richt is probably the most well respect man in college football, so say what you will about the football team as a whole, but the man is a good and caring individual. UGA had its 2 string in the game in the middle of the third quarter and when Richt was going for it on fourth down in the fourth quarter we had our third string in there. Most of them were seniors and wanted to be as much as a part of the victory as the rest of the team. And last time I checked Hawaii was running the score up on little glorified high school teams this season. Hawaii put up 17 points in the fourth quarter, and still throwing for it on 4th down on Charleston Southern, so don't talk about bush league.
If you wanna talk about "bush" league as you call it, how about your little thug #29 Jones, going helmet to helmet on our senior return man and putting him out of his final game. And all he wanted to do was take his helmet off and talk trash and look hard for the camera.
Hawaii got exactly what it deserved New Years Day....a reality check
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/72592)
I've never been one to crap on a parade, nor am I trying to be a nay-sayer, but this season shows that Hawai'i has come a long way, but still has a lot of the same difficulties: a great record that was at least partly due to a weak conference and weaker non-conference schedule, and a difficulty playing off the island (surely at least in part because they ahve to travel so dang far to play road games, and vice versa in home games).
June has certainly re-established the bar at Hawai'i to the point that I see no reason why the next decade won't be a constant battle between Boise and the Warriors for the WAC title (with an occasional threat from Fresno State). Question is, is that good enough? I think so, but the national media won't.
(Plus, I think, considering what he has accomplished at Hawai'i, June might want the challenge of trying to turn into Howard Schnellenberger Jr and resurrect another college football program down at SMU)