Sunday, December 02, 2007

HAWAI'I, THE NEW BOISE STATE

It was totally worth staying up until 3-something a.m. to see the Hawai'i Warriors complete a perfect regular season with a comeback 35-28 win over Washington.

Colt Brennan and the Warriors, with a run-and-shoot offence instead of a satchel of trick plays, are officially this year's Boise State. Like Evel Knievel, Brennan and Hawai'i are the underdog that people cheer for, no matter how much of a dog they might be. Their coach, June Jones, was in Ottawa with the Rough Riders once upon a time, so suffice to say he's in a much better place these days.

Meantime, Andy Kissko, one of Epic Carnival's stable of writers, has a letter-perfect parody of the Bowl Clusterf--k Series.

Related:
Now what? (Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports)
What a Bunch of Losers: The case for cancelling college football's national title game (Josh Levin, Slate)

3 comments:

Dennis Prouse said...

The BCS always was a joke, but for this year, at least, the joke is out there for all to see. How does Hawaii run the table and not get a shot, while a two loss team gets to go to the dance? Answer -- the two loss team comes from a sexier, higher paying conference, and will thus attract better ratings. Hawaii is getting screwed in the same way Boise State did last year -- hopefully the Warriors can do what Boise State did as well, and stick it to an establishment team. If Hawaii wins, and Ohio State loses, I am hoping that the AP poll at least declares Hawaii as national champs, just to stick it to the BCS.

I have always thought the BCS was a solution in search of a problem anyway. I always liked the fact that college football didn't have a playoff system -- it kind of added to the charm, and left you with the illusion that this was still college athletics.

sager said...

Hawai'i made a fan of me early Sunday morning that's for sure.... although I watch a lot of NCAA once the CIS season wraps up, I'd never seen them other than in one of those Dec. 27 bowl games.

ESPN did a good job capturing the passion of the Warriors' fans, the unique makeup of their roster (Polynesians, lightly recruited mainlanders), and I'll cop to having a fetish for the Run-and-Shoot offence.

The Run and Shoot is the football analogue to Pete Carril's Princeton offence in college basketball... it attracts a cult following.

sager said...

By the way, those sneaky bastards from Georgia are wearing black for the game -- so Hawai'i can't wear their black...

Hawai'i must have known that was coming... they wore their whites at home vs. Washington.