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Southern Cal and Michigan refuse to play Hawaii
By Dagger | November 19, 2007
We have pimped the University of Hawaii’s football team on this blog a number of times. If you haven’t noticed, Hawaii is undefeated this season yet still can’t crack the Top 10. I love Colt Brennan, I love June Jones, I love the spread offense they run, and I go out of my way to watch as many of their games as I possibly can. Sometimes they dont kickoff their games until midnight Eastern Time, but the “show” they put on is something I don’t want to miss out on. ESPN.com has a great article questioning why they aren’t getting any respect right now while Kansas (in a similar situation) is in contention for the BCS Championship game. So why are teams saying “No” to playing in Hawaii (which entails a trip to Oahu as well as a cash “bonus” of 250k-750k as extra incentive) when the schedule makers get together? According to Hawaii head coach June Jones ” Teams don’t want to make the trip anymore. They come here, we kick their ass, they go home.” Great quote. LOL.
Hawaii coach June Jones wanted his football team to open the season at Michigan. The Wolverines wouldn’t play the Warriors and instead hosted Division I-AA Appalachian State, which beat Michigan 34-32 in one of the biggest upsets in college football history.
Hawaii was scheduled to play Michigan State this season, but the Spartans paid $250,000 to cancel the game. Jones tried to replace the Spartans with Southern California, but even the Trojans wanted no part of quarterback Colt Brennan and the Warriors’ high-octane offense.
“We offered to play everybody,” Jones said. “No one wanted to play us.”
With two weeks left in the regular season, Hawaii is one of only two unbeaten teams left in major college football. The Warriors are 10-0 and ranked No. 15 in the BCS standings. Hawaii has to finish in the top 12 of the final BCS standings to receive a lucrative at-large berth in a BCS bowl game, or in the top 16 and ranked higher than one of the champions of the traditional BCS conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 and SEC).
Even if Hawaii beats No. 19 Boise State on Friday night (ESPN2, 9 ET) and Washington on Dec. 1 to finish the regular season at 12-0, the Warriors aren’t guaranteed of playing in a BCS bowl game. It will be up to the voters in the Harris Interactive Poll and coaches’ top-25 poll, two of the main components in the BCS formula, to put them there.
“We knew before the season started that we had to win them all to get any respect,” Jones said. “We’ve kind of focused on one at a time and it’s worked for us. All I know is we beat Arizona State in a bowl game last year and we’ve won 20 of our last 21 games. We’ll line up and play anybody.”
Kansas is the only other unbeaten team left in major college football. The Jayhawks are 11-0 and ranked No. 2 in the BCS standings. Kansas is in its lofty and unprecedented position because it scheduled wisely, to say the least.
The Jayhawks didn’t play Oklahoma, Texas or Texas Tech, three of the strongest teams in the Big 12, during the regular season. The Big 12 office, and not the Jayhawks, set the conference schedule. Read the entire article here.
Topics: College Football, Sports, University of Hawaii | 11 Comments »
November 20th, 2007 at 12:04 am
I’m not going to complain about Hawaii’s situation when the entire bowl system is subjective crap.
November 20th, 2007 at 1:25 am
I agree, the BCS is a joke…which is why i think pointing out Hawaii’s situation is so important to us BCS-haters. If you look at W-L Hawaii should be ranked 1 or 2 in the nation. But the BCS is a voting system and your play on the field isn’t necessarily the most important thing.
If u hate the BCS cheer for Hawaii this Friday vs Bosie State and hope we have 2 teams finish undefeated in Hawaii and Kansas. Then hope that there are some REALLY upset teams on Bowl Selection day when some “good” 1 loss team is left out of the title game vs Kanas. This is the perfect scenario for us BCS-haters.
Let them decide who they want in their title game based on “who can bring in the most fans” and “who was ranked where in the preseason polls” and crap like that.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Ever since you first brought up Colt Brennan a few months ago, I’ve watched some of his highlight clips around the internet. Not to state the obvious, but I’m no NFL scout. But what’s with his throwing motion? It looks like it’s halfway between a normal throwing motion and side-arm. Is that going to fly once he goes pro?
November 20th, 2007 at 10:47 am
His throwing motion is a little off to the side. That’s something that may or may not be fixed when he turns pro. Word is that he is going to be drafted in round 1 or 2.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Uh, just a theory, here. But is it possible that nobody wants to play Hawaii because nobody wants to pay the Big Bucks it would take to send an entire football team there?
November 20th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Just a suggestion, but you might want to check who’s playing at Hawaii 9/4/10…
November 20th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
USC, eh? Took them long enough.
November 21st, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Larry, teams are subsidized to play AT Hawaii. The schools literally pays them $250K -$750K to send their team to play 1 game in Hawaii. The game that Michigan State pulled out off included a $500K cash incentive, plus a bonus of $500K from ESPN, but opted to pay $250K to get out of the game…strange huh? Most schools won’t PAY another school to come out, that is why they schedule a lot of home-at-home series to even it out. However, because most schools won’t offer Hawaii a home-at-home situation, and don’t offer to subsidize Hawaii to fly over there, Hawaii is s*** out of luck! Oh well, hopefully they find a better way to get games scheduled…but I have seen some of the future out of confrence schedules for Hawaii and it includes games at Florida, USC, and a couple of Big 10 schools…
November 26th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
“Took” Long enough? (lol) How about:
2005: 63-17 (Honolulu)
2003: 62-31 (LA)
1999: 62-7 (LA)
Lets be real here. (lol)
December 4th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Amen. My post is a little late, but the previous commenter forgets: The Hawaii teams that were beat by USC weren’t QB’d by Colt Brennan.
But his attitude is sadly typical. College football is the only game in which the unimaginative masses are allowed to say “It can’t be done,” and we leave it at that. Of course Hawaii would be the underdog against USC! But the beautiful thing about sports — except college football — is that the ignorant masses are, with surprising regularity, proven wrong.
You know, like when Stanford beat USC.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Yeah keep telling yourself you can play with the big dogs Hawaii… You were destroyed last night, maybe play some decent teams at their place since nobody wants to go to Hawaii unless its in the offseason in the NFL… Better luck next year being 11-0 and playing in the BCS with a weak ass schedule…