Moses Samia has the right mind-set about riding out the storm.

"I’m not too concerned because the weather is out of our control," the University of Hawaii defensive tackle said after practice Thursday morning. "We control what we can control and the coaches are doing a good job of keeping us focused."

That’s the kind of talk you expect from a good senior leader, and Samia figures to be a key to UH’s defensive improvement this fall as point man in the newly installed 3-4.

And, from what we’ve been told, at least for a couple of nights the UH players can study their schemes and rest up in some decent accommodations.

If there’s a silver lining to all the clouds produced by Iselle and Julio, it’s that the oncoming hurricanes got the Rainbow Warriors out of the dank dance studios and to the higher ground of Frear Hall.

At least that was the plan late Thursday, according to athletic director Ben Jay. You never know for sure when a situation is so, well, so fluid.

If flooding is really bad on lower campus, or the louvers fall off in the dance studios, the team could end up staying in the dorm longer than through Monday, which is the current booking.

But isn’t it ridiculous that the team has to move around at all? Shouldn’t it have been in the dorms from the beginning? It’s not like there aren’t vacancies with weeks to go before the start of fall semester.

We hear plenty of complaints about Aloha Stadium sticking it to another state entity by charging UH for use of its own home field. Isn’t it just as bad that a team — whatever sport, but especially the school’s biggest moneymaker (and make no mistake, that is still football) — can only use its own school’s dorm facilities because Mother Nature is throwing a fit?

Of course there’s envy when players and staff see the luxuriant athletic facilities of other schools. But we’re just talking basics here.

Health and safety.

Dance studios are not designed to be lived in. I can see one or two nights if necessary, like when neighbor island high school teams come over for games and camp out in a gym.

You can make the old-school argument that roughing it brings the team together. But good luck turning that into a recruiting tool, and where is the point of diminishing returns? A chip on a shoulder can get too big where it is a burdensome rock and more of a tangible disadvantage than a psychological positive. 

As for practice itself, this is football so a little rain shouldn’t bother anyone. But a lot of rain, that’s different.

I was reminded of late in the 2007 season when UH was undefeated despite its disadvantages (one advantage was a very, very friendly schedule). It poured one day at practice, and Colt Brennan said, "No worries, we’ll just go practice at our indoor facility."

Of course the joke was that UH had no indoor facility. Still does not.

Defensive coordinator Kevin Clune comes from Utah State, which has tremendous facilities for a midmajor.

"They come in handy especially when there’s lightning," he said. "And for our offseason training it’s a necessity."

It doesn’t snow in Hawaii, so maybe that’s a luxury UH can’t afford.

Especially when it takes two hurricanes to get the Rainbow Warriors a pass into the dorms.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.