The beauty of week 1 in college football is its unpredictability. Lots of new faces take their first star turn. Even established programs can surprise: Absolutely nobody predicted the dominance from either LSU or Washington State this weekend.
However, the most electric surprise in the country are the Hawaii RAINBOW Warriors (The Odyssey hated the deletion of Rainbow from their nickname for its decade+ of deletion). In part due to transfer defections, Hawaii was supposed to stink this year. How stinky?? So stinky that Phil Steele pegged Hawaii for dead last in its division. That sounds bad enough but when you recall that San Jose State is in the division, Steele basically foresaw the Rainbow Warriors as one of the very, very worst teams in college football. He had lots of company as the season win total in Las Vegas hovered between 3 and 3.5 (mind you, this was based on a 13-game schedule for Hawaii).
Oddly, the defection of two-year starting quarterback Dru Brown to Oklahoma State is riddled with irony. First, Brown was not tabbed the Stillwater starter. Second, this allowed Cole McDonald to become Hawaii’s starter. This may have been the best luck for a team since Wally Pipp’s injury allowed Lou Gehrig to start for the Yankees.
Hawaii, due to a week 0 tilt with Colorado State, has amassed a whopping 1,139 yards of offense. The most amazing betting line this year occurred in the Navy game Saturday in Honolulu. Despite Hawaii’s upset win at Colorado State as a 17 point dog, Navy started as a 12 point favorite. As game time approached, the line rose to 14. When you factor in the 6 time zones of travel for the Middies, and that Navy does not play great defense even in its best years, bettors had little belief in the Rainbow Warriors.
I wonder what bettors thought when Navy’s halftime deficit was a whopping 24 points at 38-14. The charismatic McDonald threw for 6 TDs to a stellar receiving corps of John Ursua, Cedric Byrd and Jojo Ward. If Hollywood ever wants to cast a great looking guy with surfer-dude looks and some mini-dreadlocks, McDonald is that guy.
We realize that their offensive fireworks have occurred against two teams who play little defense. Hawaii has a tissue soft schedule the next month. We expect Wyoming to come to Honolulu on October 6 against a psyched up 6-0 Rainbow Warrior squad. We believe Hawaii has a reasonable shot to travel to Provo the following week as an undefeated team against a rejuvenated BYU.
Their story is already a great one and has the potential to become even better. Mahalo!