Monday, September 18, 2006

WAC Supremacy

When one thinks of the WAC Fresno State and Boise State automatically come to mind for most people. The one team they are leaving out to start this season may be the one team that walks away with the WAC crown, and is a team that should scare the crap out of every single Fresno, Boise, Nevada, and whatever other fans of WAC teams there are out there. That team this season is Hawaii. The Warriors opened the season with a last second loss to Alabama in Bama's house which obviously is never an easy place to walk out of with a victory. At the starting of the year I said Hawaii could conceivably go 9-3 with losses to Fresno, Boise, and Alabama if they decided to play a little defense. Let me retract that prediction. Hawaii may have played offensively challenged Bama and a pretty bad UNLV team, but they have yielded 38 points in the process. If the Warriors limit the offenses of other teams to 30 points a game they will win every game remaining on theirs schedule. Yes, they will beat Boise, Fresno, Nevada, and La. Tech. It doesn't matter where these games are, the offense for this team is absolutely unreal.

Do not look at this as someone trying to prop up Hawaii, this is going to be my WAC weekly review from here on. I realize Hawaii played UNLV but take a look at the rest of their schedule including their final four games:

Sept 23rd: @ Boise State
Oct 1st: Eastern Illinois
Oct 8th: Nevada
Oct 14th: @ Fresno State
Oct 21st: @ New Mexico State
Oct 29th: Idaho
Nov. 4th: @ Utah State
Nov. 11th: La. Tech
Nov. 18th: San Jose State
Nov. 25th: Purdue
Dec. 2nd: Oregon State

Now there is not one person out there who can view this schedule and think Hawaii will lose more than two games on this schedule. They finish with their last four games at home and should be a tough game for both Fresno and Boise. If Fresno tries ball control against the Warriors and it fails we could conceivably be blown out of the stadium because of how fast their offense scores. Overall I am just giving out a warning here to us Dog fans and every other team in the WAC. The Warriors are going to be tough to beat. Don't pencil them in for an automatic victory, they are just too good to do that to anymore.

The rest of the WAC had a good week aside Fresno State (Loss @ Washington) and Utah State (loss to Utah). Conference play begins for many teams this week and the highlight game of the week for the WAC is Boise State vs. Hawaii. I am actually stunned they are not carrying this game on television Saturday. These two teams have top 25 caliber talent and apparently the college football world does not see this. For any Dog fans who want to check these teams out they will be playing a live stream on Boise State's website. Just go to the football schedule and click on the tv there and you will be able to see it. it should be a very good game. I will not pick a winner, they are to damn close in talent to say who will win, but it will be close just like last year's game was on the island.

1 comment:

nsc said...

I just don't think people take Hawaii seriously and this years team is nothing like the teams they have had before. They play defense more so than they have in the past and obviously have the most creative offense in the nation. Our corners and safeties aside McCauley cannot cover anyone right now and the spread offense will absolutely kill us unless we get pressure on Brennan (which we haven't done at all this season to any quarterbacks).

If Fresno tries to control the clock against Hawaii by running the ball over and over, we will not win the game. I will be the first to say that there is no way we will beat Hawaii with that offensive mindset. They will have drives of two, three, and four minutes that will net seven points often. So we have to open it up. We have two games that are perfect to do so in Utah State and Colorado State. If we don't then a long season is in the near future.