Looking backwards to see forward... Let's not panic (yet)!

[stranger808]

I am still a little skeptical about the Rolo hire over June Jones. Rolo is the young sexy hire that most Hawaii fans where begging for and I don't see a problem hiring Rolo. But he did hire a lot of young coaches around him; some his team mates from Hawaii. I not comparing the infamous Norm Chow hire of Luke Matthew and Jordan Wynn to the young coaches on Rolo staff but that lack of coaching experience (FBS and NFL coaching experience) on this staff is concerning.

Rolo might need to hire some veteran coaches to help him scheme and put the players in position to make plays, Not comparing Rolo to Future Hall of Fame Coach Bill Belichick but we have to admit that even though Future Hall of Fame QB Tom Brady is out for 4 games, Coach Belichick and his staff know how to plug in players into there system and also scheme the offense to the back QB strengths. With back up QB Jimmy Garoppolo starting Belichick and his staff adjusted the offensive scheme and won games and then this week the 3rd string QB Jacoby Brissett got the start due to injury. Belichick and his staff adjusted to Brissett strength of being a mobile QB and ran the option on offense against a good Houston defense for a blow out win.

Listen, nobody questions the love for Hawaii Rolo and former teammates that are now on coaching staff have for Hawaii. But I'm thinking that Rolo young coaching staff might get out coached by other teams that have more experienced coaching staff. A wise man knows when to ask for help and Rolo might want to consider bringing in some experienced veteran Ex-NFL type coaches to help him build Hawaii back to college football respectability.

June Jones system was tired and old. No college program hired him after he quit on SMU, that should say something right there. I'm glad we have Rolo, he's young and hungry, knows multiple offensive schemes, has charisma, organizational skills, understands about community relationships etc... I believe Rolo will prove to be a great hire.

[My3Cats]

Chow is available. Get plenty experience, but he no experience me. [what song is this from?]

Link

Haha! Great song from the old days. And Chow needs to stay in the past too.

[poidog]

Judging from comments on this board and on others, it is clear to see that there is a sense of panic and frustration as to how the season started. I think this is fair, given how bad things were the last few years and how badly we all want things to change. But for myself, I am not panicking. I try to temper what I see now with things I've seen in the past and how things may play out in the future. These are some things that come to mind...

In 1999, UH started out with a 62-7 loss to USC. They then followed things up with wins against Eastern Illinois, a not-yet-great Boise State team, and a terrible SMU team. In Hawaii Warrior Football, the book about that season, June Jones said that they broke the season down into 3 four-game portions and judged their success not by which games they won or lost, but how they finished each 4-game set (they wanted to go 3-1 and it didn't matter which games they won or lost or by how much they lost by, but that they accomplished their goal). I look at this season and how it is laid out and you see a loaded first four games that starts out by causing the team to lose a week of fall practice by starting the season a week early, 3 road games and several days lost to travel, but ends with a bye week. You look at this 4-game stretch and you ask yourself what are the priorities for this stretch? going 2-2 would be nice but 1-3 is more realistic, so what should be the focus if won't be winning? Aside from wins and losses you want to see "what you got," particularly at QB and but also at each defensive position and even at WR and RB (only OL seems set). Do we know whether or not Woolsey is the best solution at QB? I think we have enough evidence after 4 games that his game experience and senior leadership isn't enough to be successful. As a new coach coming in, Rolo didn't know what he had going into the season but now he at least knows that Woolsey may not be the guy (regardless of all the armchair coaches who insist that they knew this already). Even with Woolsey starting, Dru Brown has still gotten a good amount of reps and having him go against the second strings of Cal, Michigan, and Arizona is probably the better way for him to get game reps while learning the offense (and while not getting hurt). We also know that Steven Lakalaka may be the most effective of the top-3 RBs even if Paul Harris and DSJ have more potential. We've also learned that there are some freshman that can contribute (Timoteo and Santiago) as well. Rolo was quoted as saying that they will do a lot of evaluating during this bye week. I think that was the plan all along, as "the real season" starts on 10/1 vs Nevada. Going 1-3 in the first 4 games may not be a success, but having a better idea of who will make an impact as we start conference play has real value to it.

No coach would ever come out and say publicly that they are probably gonna lose 3 of their first 4 games and that they are going to start a QB who may not be the best one on the roster so that they can bring along a better one slowly or that they are going to use the first 4 games as an evaluation period more than to try to win, but perhaps that's what was going on? I think everyone kind of knew coming into the season that it may take a season or two (hopefully not more than that) for any new coach to be able to turn things around, so why not just treat fall camp and the first 4 games as a kind of "season 1-a" and then put it behind us and then have the bye week and the rest of the schedule be "season 1-b". Regardless of how season 1-a turned out, we still need to win 6 games (go 6-3, with 5 games at home) in season 1-b to qualify for the Hawaii Bowl so the goal doesn't really change all that much. Going into a home game against UNR coming off a bye week of rest and preparation with a new-but-with-game-reps QB, with 4 games experience against talented teams (yes, even UT-Martin) and a head coach who has intimate knowledge of the opposing team and its tendencies and personnell? Things could be worse.

However, if we get smashed by UNR all of this goes out the window.

Season 1-b is off to a great start!

[415hawaiiboy]

Let's see how we do against San Jose St. Coaching wise, we had plenty of advantages over Nevada.

[dakineguy]

I love this forum but you are too negative but maybe not as bad as other forums. UH is my team. I will go down with the ship. I am not bailing out. If the ship sinks I am staying as long as the team stays. I support them 100%. I totally appreciate everything they give us.

[shrek2]

I love this forum but you are too negative but maybe not as bad as other forums. UH is my team. I will go down with the ship. I am not bailing out. If the ship sinks I am staying as long as the team stays. I support them 100%. I totally appreciate everything they give us.

I totally agree. It brings back good memories that we beat the likes of almost every Big 10 team at least once and making the Big 10 afraid of visiting Aloha Stadium. And, the time that Hawaii beat Alabama in 2003. Hopes and dreams.