Posts Tagged ‘Warrior Football’

The starting running back for the junior college National Champion Mount San Antonio College in California has committed to playing football for the University of Hawaii. Lancer Tuitele has stated he will indeed be here in time to participate in Warriors training camp, which starts on August 4^th.

The Hawaii coaches apparently loved what they saw on his highlight video. Tuitele is listed as 5-foot-10, 190 pounds. He said he is capable of completing the pro-agility drill in 3.97 seconds. His vertical jump is 41 inches.

One of the main reasons for wanting to play in Hawaii is the fact that he has plenty of family here. He also said that his former college ran a similar spread offense like UH does so he is pretty familiar with the concepts.

The University of Hawaii seems to be getting some nice recruits for the upcoming season. They need to build as much excitement as they can, because playing in the WAC offers very little excitement. Tuitele is the second running back to commit to UH in the past few days. On Friday, Sterling Jackson, a 6-foot-1 225-pounder from Mendocino (Calif.) College, said he would join the Warriors.

Football season is just around the corner, and while there is not too much to be excited about for UH as far as the way the WAC is going, there is a possibility that the season opener with USC could be the most lucrative single game in the school’s history.

If UH sells out the game – or comes close to selling it out, then the school could pull in over $1.2 million on a single game. This would surpass the standing record of a little over $1.1 million set during USC’s last visit.

Things that are contributing to this? The main factor is the fact that UH has raised ticket prices for this one game. Sideline single-game tickets for the USC game only from $38 to $50 and student tickets from $8 to $15. Some premium locations also had changes. Another big contributor is the fact that USC travels well, and there are also plenty of USC fans in Hawaii.

With the interest in the Warriors opening game and how they will look, the first game for new USC coach Lane Kiffin, and the fact that USC has a ton of regulations levied against it, people are showing plenty of interest.

UH has already sold over 18,500 season tickets, which is a great number for them at this point of the year. The UH-USC game already has 30,000 tickets accounted for, which means with walk-up business – as well as more buyers in the next couple months, that this game has a good chance to sellout.

With all the bad news this offseason regarding the WAC, at least UH will make some money on their non-conference schedule. Get to these games and support the football team; otherwise you will just have WAC play to look forward to.

It is the end of spring and the beginning of summer. For University of Hawaii football this means the start of 11-on-11 scrimmages. What is missing? The coaches and trainers of course.

The NCAA allows football programs to set-up summer strength and conditioning programs, the catch?, coaches are not allowed to be anywhere near the practice vicinity. Yesterday the University of Hawaii football players were out in force as they started their strength and conditioning summer practices.

Everything is et-up before hand so the players know what drills to do and what to run, but it still takes leadership and dedication to pull something like this off. The players have to be dedicated and willing to take instructions from other players. So far – at least for Hawaii football, this has not been a problem.

Players are extremely excited for the upcoming season and are looking at this next year as a fresh start, one that will hopefully find themselves injury free and in contention for their first WAC title since 2007.

This is an exciting time of year for everyone involved in UH football. The season is around the corner and the players are looking to make a statement. This summer strength and conditioning period will serve to help them in the long run.

The man who is responsible for developing the run and shoot offense is coming back to the University of Hawaii football team as part of an attempt to bring the Warriors back to prominence. Mouse Davis will be the receiver’s coach, but will also serve as mentor to many of the players and staff.

Mouse is the original architect of the run and shoot offense, which has been utilized in Hawaii football since the June Jones first came to coach, and now with Greg McMackin and his current staff.

Utilizing this sort of offense allows smaller less skilled athletes to compete with the big boys and opens up the playing field like no other offense in football. During the June Jones years, Hawaii led the nation in either passing offense, total offense or both every year he was here. The offense is also famous for allowing good quarterbacks to become unstoppable offensive weapons.

Mouse stated that he is excited to be back in the islands and looks forward to all that there is left to accomplish with this team. He will be coaching the receivers and has said that Hawaii has a great stable of receivers that are all ready to go this year. Welcome back Mouse!

Record setting University of Hawaii football player Ashley Lelie will return to the Warriors as a student manager. Lelie is looking to complete his degree in History. He originally forfeited his senior year in school to apply for the NFL Draft in 2002.

Lelie says it feels good to be back in the game football, ”I was starting to miss it.” As a student manager, Lelie will be allowed to offer help to the current stable of UH wide receivers, as well as receive tuition waivers. Lelie claims to be excited to help the team out, and looks forward to the upcoming season.

Lelie was highly touted in 2002, which is the main reason he pulled out of school a year early. In 2002, he led AFC rookies in receiving yards (525). Two years later, he topped NFL receivers with an average of 20.1 yards per catch. Everything was adding up for Lelie to be one of the best receivers in the game. He had height, speed and agility.

The turning point for the worse came in 2006, when he staged a holdout. He was demoted to second-string by the Broncos and was also forced to pay back an option bonus. He eventually forced a trade and landed with the Atlanta Falcons. From there his reputation followed him to stops in San Francisco, Oakland and Kansas City, never again getting his feet under him.

Recognizing that it was time to move on, Lelie contacted current Uh coach Greg McMackin and the rest is history. Lelie says his main priority is to complete his degree in History, and says he wants to teach and coach someday.

UH will play it’s last regular season game of the football season this year at Aloha Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. where the 6 and 6 University of Hawaiii Warriors take on the 8 and 3 University of Wisconsin Badgers who make the trip all the way from Madison, Wisconsin.

Parking at Aloha Stadium is as usual, normal tailgating rules, police enforcement, and of course, no tailgating afterwards (“you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” rules.)

Normal parking for football tailgating is that at 1 p.m. the Lower Halawa Parking Lot (Gates 3 and 4) will open and the Upper Halawa, UH Reserved, and Kamehameha lots will follow, opening at 2 p.m. If you’re looking to avoid the crowds, more parking (free) will be available at Radford High School, Kam Drive In, and Leeward Community College (LCC) with a $2 shuttle taking you to and from the stadium. This parking opens at 3 p.m.

The stadium will open for fans at 5 p.m. so you can watch the warm-ups or just get settled in your seats early.

Idaho has become bowl eligible for the first time in tens years. And they did it at the expense of Warriors last night.

Idaho beat the Warriors 35 – 23 and moves to 6 and 1 on the year and 3 and 0 in WAC conference play. Idaho came out victorious with a balanced offense of running and passing. But the big news was their defense, who, despite a great offensive showing by UH, was able to keep them out of the endzone.

UH quarterback, Bryant Moniz ,completed 30 of 42 passes for 360 yards. Which on any other day would be a great set of stats, but on this night, it wasn’t the case.

UH falls to 2 and 4 on the year, which doesn’t look good for their bowl eligibility.

Hawaii made it to another bowl a year after Colt Brennan lead the team to it’s first ever BCS birth with an undefeated regular season.  Although it’s not quite a BCS, Hawaii has something to cheer about with this years bowl selection.

Good for the football program of UH and also good for Hawaii tourism in general is the selection of Notre Dame to play the University of Hawaii in this years Hawaii Bowl on December 24th, 2008 at Aloha Stadium.   The Warriors, 7-6, will take on a struggling 6-6 Notre Dame.

Notre Dame, who’s strength of schedule is usually a high point, played some weaker teams this year and still had a subpar season.  Charlie Weis was on the verge of being fired before a late contract renewal and the Notre Dame hopefull didn’t think they’d be seeing a bowl game this year.

Hawaii on the other hand played above what the critics thought after loosing several key starters such as Colt Brennan to the draft and also their head coach, June Jones.  The surprise leaving of June Jones, coming after an undefeated season, left new comer Greg McMackin with some big shoes to fill.

The game also comes as a big boost to Hawaii tourism which has been suffering lately with the economic turmoil that has most of America and the world cutting down on vacations to paradise. Tickets for the game have been selling fast and with the game coming in the middle of the week, on Christmas Eve, the hope is that most people will make an extended trip of it. The Notre Dame faithful is usually represented well at any bowl game so there can be hope that Charlie Weis will be able to convince them to make the trip to Honolulu with him.

Finally! On the second day of the NFL draft, Colt Brennan was picked in the 6th round by the Washington Redskins. Scouting reports showed his light slowly fading during pre-Draft workouts, but let’s hope Colt shows them wrong and sticks it out long enough to start in the NFL someday. Recent hip surgery will keep in on the injured list for some time, so we’re all hoping Colt can bounce back and show everyone what a great, professional quarterback he is.

Exactly two months from today, we will find out where and when Colt Brennan will go in this year’s NFL draft. In the meantime, we just have to wait it out and see. Lucky for Colt Brennan fans, he’s right in the thick of things at the NFL Scouting Combine. His impressive performance this weekend may yet turn heads and prove he’s worth an early pick.

What are your thoughts? Where do you think he’ll go in the draft?