Warriors’ bye week could be turning point for Rolovich

You rarely hear a college football coach who doesn’t prize an open date on the schedule, but what makes one really special is being able to do something significant with it.

Use the time well and it can be a springboard into the rest of the season, perhaps even helping to determine the course of one.

That’s a proposition that confronts rookie head coach Nick Rolovich this week as he seeks to lift the Rainbow Warriors up off the deck and into conference play after a 1-3 start.

You need only flip back some pages in UH history to see the potential value of the open week — and what the failure to capitalize on one can mean.

Take Dick Tomey and June Jones, Hawaii’s two winningest coaches, for example. Tomey was 11-6-1 coming off open dates. Jones went 7-5.

In the record NCAA turnaround season of 1999 under Jones, UH went into the open date off a loss and roared out of it to win five of its last seven games, finishing 9-4 and completing the rise from 0-12 the season before.

In 1984 the ’Bows had found a roll after a slow start to the season and Tomey was confronted with the potential dead spot of that rarest of scheduling oddities, consecutive open dates. In UH’s case that meant a 20-day break between games.

So Tomey scoured the coaching Rolodex in seeking advice, settling on Boston College’s Jack Bicknell, who had been in a similar position the season before. Instead of coming out rusty or flat, UH was focused and ferocious with a 48-13 victory to set up a 7-4 season.

On the flip side, Norm Chow went 0-4 coming out of open dates and Fred von Appen was 0-3, their teams never finding a rhythm or success.

Now, this week, it is Rolovich’s turn to see what he can do with the opportunity.

And even before the grueling 25,000-mile march to this point, the Rainbow Warriors have waited a long time for this one to arrive. Two years, in fact. Not since Sept. 27, 2014 has UH had an in-season break on its schedule.

Last year the ‘Bows ran the first 13-games-in-13-weeks gauntlet in school history, no small factor when combined with the “guarantee” road games at Ohio State and Wisconsin in a 3-10 finish.

This open date sets up as a particularly promising opportunity. It is one UH beseeched the Mountain West for and a wish the conference complied with, even putting a cherry on top.

Not only is UH off until Oct., 1, when it does return, it will be at home and against the one team in the conference that Rolovich would seem to know almost as well as his own, Nevada.

The insights gained from four years under the tent with the Wolf Pack can be put into play, especially with the extra time to work on them.

Not to mention making a decision at quarterback and the all-too-well-recognized needs of brushing up on tackling, onside kicks and reducing penalties.

The Nevada game opens the MWC, the so-called “second” season, where there are still possibilities for UH, and beating the Wolf Pack would be a great way to start it.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.