University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics

 

 

“This first win, you’re either at the top of the heap or at the bottom. I talked with Sonny Dykes and I thought their guys played really hard. Most teams come in here and they get tired by the fourth quarter, but they got stronger in the fourth.”

 

“I thought the first half, our defense played outstanding, except for that one last drive. Offensively, we played really well. In the second half, when La Tech put in number 11 (Ross Jenkins), he gave us a little trouble and they still had their running game going. We made some adjustments and changed some things up towards the end of the ballgame and blitzed a lot more. Including a max blitz with all three backers and played zone behind it because we had to get something on it.”

 

“Offensively we kept it going and ran the clock out, so I’m really pleased. And their two kickoff return guys are big time guys, so we kicked to them early in the game and we did well against them. But then one of them ran the ball out 50 yards, so we decided not to kick to him. So we decided to sky kicked it and it looked terrible, so I said squib the next one and that looked terrible too, I’m glad we didn’t have to kick off any more.”

 

“Our slots and our quarterbacks were just outstanding. I thought our offensive line (did well), they blitzed a bunch of times. We got sacked seven times last year (against La Tech). But this year, Kealoha broke a school record with (18) catches, which is amazing. Moniz threw for 532 yards and he must’ve ran for 50 more. We had 640 yards in total offense.”

 

“I was proud of our defense, we had three interceptions and we had a couple of fourth down stops which we count as a turnover because our offense goes in at that point. It got competitive for awhile that had to thrill the fans, but I wasn’t really thrilled with it because we got a little sloppy in the second half on defense and we have things that we have to fix up. But I thought we came back in the end of the game. They had six three and outs in the first half. And then the way we count it we had five turnovers. But in the second half we let Jenkins get to us, and we can’t do that.

 

“It does because you got to get the call in and they’re getting a play off ever 22 seconds. You can’t practice it until you line up against it. So in the first half we were pretty good about it, and then I think we got a little tired because it’s a fast pace deal. In the first half we got off early, but in the second we sort of went back to the Colorado deal with not getting (our defense) off, so we’re getting tired and we make a mistake and they score. We got to get consistent. We’re really young on defense and we just have to get better.”

 

“I thought we did a pretty good job of coming back and giving ourselves a chance in the second half. We got down so fast and played so poorly early in the ball game. Our kids really played hard and had a chance to get back in the game. We just couldn’t quite make a play or two—couldn’t convert a fourth down when we had a chance, got a turnover and couldn’t do much with it. That’s just a sign of our inconsistencies that’s kind of been plaguing us all year. But I thought our kids really played hard, especially in the second half. It’s been a long trip, and I thought they gave great effort across the board tonight.”

 

“I think (Hawai‘i’s) receivers are outstanding. That’s as good a group of receivers as I’ve seen. They’re fun players to watch, their quarterback’s really good. When they’re operating at this level like they were tonight, they’re going to be a very difficult team to beat, especially over here. They play well at home. If they can continue to execute at this level, they’ll give people headaches.”