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College Football: Upon Reflection, Hawaii Is A Real Threat To UGA Bowl Hopes
by Christopher McIntosh
12/19/2007
Upon further review, the call on the field is...
Confirmed.
I've had some time to go home, go out, get away from college football and generally act like a college student.
At my age, this isn't a good thing. (I did not, regardless of what any security officers might tell you, challenge a friend to a footrace at 1 AM only to lose after I took three steps and fell down because a. it was wet, b. I was barefoot, and c. to coin a phrase, I was "in a drinking way.")
I'd also like it noted for the record that my name is never, at any point, mentioned in the Mitchell Report.
During my sabbatical, I've tried to think about Georgia's bowl game with some distance, not colored by the anger of getting shut out of the national championship bowl, watching OSU rise in the polls without playing while we somehow fell, or the continual bewilderment of how the computers voted Virginia Tech the number 1 team in the country.
I'm basically of two minds with this game. Hawaii fans, you ain't gonna like the first part, but bear with me. My time wandering has allowed more balance to creep in.
Things I think about Hawaii
1. My mother always said to start with something nice, so I'll say this. Hawaii absolutely, positively, 100% deserves to be in the BCS. Period. I've sat down with friends who were as incredulous as I was initially but realized that there's really no one else. I think Hawaii should go ahead of Illinois and almost certainly Kansas (although I'd love to see that game just to find out what the over started at: 130? 135? 140?). Even if you put Missouri in, as God intended, Hawaii should be there. They earned it.
2. The strength of schedule. I could be a homer and point out the near consensus with which people point out the strength of the SEC this year (at worst, maybe, the PAC-10 could be argued as better. It's a losing argument, but still, it's an argument). I won't.
I will say this. The teams in the WAC who didn't play on a South Pacific Island or the Smurf Turf were abysmal. They're best win was against Washington. No, not Boise State. BSU got to number 19 by beating the same awful teams that Hawaii did, so how can that be a measure of how good they were? Boise State was not the same BSU of Oklahoma fame this year. Their one loss? Washington. Beating BSU didn't really matter. Beating the team that beat BSU did. And they spotted them three touchdowns. At home. In their most important game of the season.
3. "But they win, and no W's come with an asterisk." (Okay, bad joke to make this week of the Mitchell Report). To put it bluntly, sorry, they do. They barely had the highest scoring offense in the country and that's including two I-AA teams they beat by more than 60 (including one which was dealing with a crisis involving a punter going Tonya Harding on the starter). They also needed OT in two more games against the ever dangerous LA Tech and San Jose State. And in another close call, they had to make a field goal as time expired down 26-25 to beat Nevada 28-26.
True, they were number one in terms of offense (ahead of KU) but they did get a bit of a boost from OT games, and more to the point, with that offense and a dark (dark) horse Heisman contender at QB, they should be regularly scoring in the 50s on the 1-A schools, too. In regulation. This does mean that they have experience in close games, but I'm not sure that really plays against UGA who's had more than a few close calls this year.
4. Defense matters. If you want to win a bar bet (outside of Athens) ask a guy to name which team had the higher margin of victory against FBS (1-A) schools? Yup, Georgia. By a couple of tenths of a point, but still ahead. Point being that the much improved Hawaii defense (up in the 30s) still wasn't exactly the 1985 Bears. I'm not saying the Hawaii defense is the Dolphins of '07, but I am saying that just because you improve, doesn't mean you've necessarily gotten very good. More to the point, if you play bad teams, you will play better than them, and your stats will rise accordingly. Doesn't matter if it's football, baseball, or tiddlywinks, if the competition is watered down, all boats will rise - including the defense.
5. June Jones and the Aloha Spirit. I don't pretend to know anything about Hawaiian customs or culture, but I am pretty sure that the rants the coach has gone on aren't part of it. I'm not saying he's always wrong (the point about Tim Tebow being a system QB made more sense to me the more I thought about it, even though I ultimately disagree with the conclusion). More to the point, he exudes a certain fire that only comes from people with a chip on their shoulder or those who feel they've been wronged and want a shot at those responsible.
If you're a fan, you love it. As an outsider, I kind of think it's telling - Boise didn't act this way, why? I think if you go into a game thinking it's us against the world and we're the underdog, we'll prove 'em wrong, it can go a little too far and betray a belief that maybe you really have internalized some of the doubt. I don't know, I'm not Dr. Phil, but all I'm saying is, continually playing the underdog card can hurt as much as it can help if you're not careful.
Now, the part that Hawaiian's might like.
Here's my big, bold, caveat.
This game scares the everliving sh*t out of me.
Hawaii will be out for blood and has the potential to run up points quick. Sound familiar to anyone? Nope, me neither, as I'd purged that West Virginia-UGA bowl game from my memory forever. But it's instructive. I quite literally walked into the hotel bar I was at, saw it was 14-0 and they had the ball. So, I decided I needed a drink and walked the ten steps to the bar. After I ordered, it was 21-0, by the time I got my drink and sat down it was 28-0. We almost came back, but the key word is "almost."
Hawaii is at a huge disadvantage as they can't travel their fans to New Orleans like UGA can, BUT, there will be a lot of neutrals in the Superdome and if another non-BCS school starts to whip up or even make a big game of it with an SEC school not named LSU, they're going to jump on the side of the Warriors immediately. They just want a party and if Brennan and Co. look like they're going to bring it, the neutrals will follow.
UGA's passing is great this year and part of the reason why we have such a balanced attack despite nearly every running back being injured at some point. But if we start to try and stand in the middle of the ring and trade blows with Hawaii we could be in trouble. Massaquoi and Bailey only recently learned how to catch a football (see last year) which is an important skill for a wide receiver. It's especially important in this game, as UGA is going to want to keep Hawaii's defense on the field for as long as possible - this means running and while both of our backs are good, they are not particularly big. If they can put 8 in the box because our passing game has tanked, we're in trouble.
There is a LONG time until this game. Time enough to cool off, out-think yourselves and come out rusty (see OSU 2007 - who also apparently didn't watch any film of Florida given that they seemed genuinely surprised by their speed). Our pass defense better be ready for a track meet and we're going to have some linebackers who are going to show up to the Sugar Bowl having lost weight given that they are basically going to turn into extra defensive backs on every down.
Ultimately, I think I know who wins this game. But to be frank, I need to do a little more research. Bowl games are about that. Teams that do their homework win, those that don't, well, don't. Statue of Liberty play to win Fiesta Bowl? They'd been working on that play for months. Just hadn't busted it out.
I'll close with this. Hawaii is a dangerous, dangerous team who's playing with house money. They've finally got a seat at the big table, they've finally got the payday, and they've finally got the showcase to prove that they'll beat anyone you put in front of them, be it LA Tech or UGA.
Problem for Hawaii fans is, there are a lot of dangerous things in this world.
But you don't have to be afraid of all of them.
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