Warriors need to focus on the now, not the future

This is the week of mismatches in college football, of throwing raw meat to dogs that have spent months eating dry puppy chow.

This is the week that the FBS teams beat up on the FCS teams — the week of the glorified scrimmages, the tune-ups, the prelims.

This is about blowouts and stat-builders where the coach might get to see which of his backup quarterbacks should be No. 2 and which should be No. 3 if he hadn’t figured that one out.

After tonight, we still won’t know who the best teams are in college football because pretty much everyone will still “have not played anyone.”

Sure, there is a rare exception here and there, the most notable being No. 1 Alabama and No. 3 Florida State wasting no time in getting it on with a main event.

But mostly it’s a bunch of mismatches, or games that are supposed to be mismatches — where even teams from Group of Five conferences, not just Power Five elites, get to be bullies.

And for the University of Hawaii, there’s even the additional advantage of having played — and won — a game last week … at a stadium far, far away.

Tonight’s opponent at Aloha Stadium from the lower FCS level, Western Carolina, is playing for the first time this year. It is also playing football for the first time in Hawaii … and that means the Catamounts could be in a lot of trouble if they spent their free time drinking mai tais and riding mopeds around Waikiki, getting sunburned and stung by Portuguese man-of-war.

Even avoiding that, they’ll probably have enough to deal with in the Men of War from Manoa. We have to say probably, because … well, you just never know.

But here’s the thing: That penalty-ridden 38-35 Hawaii win at UMass that the Rainbow Warriors had to pull out at the end probably bodes worse for Western Carolina than if UH had won 100-0.

There’s no reason for this Hawaii team to waltz out through that big plastic helmet at Aloha Stadium thinking it will romp just by showing up and showing up without focus.

Sure, Western Carolina was 2-9 last year. But that was last year.

And speaking of last year, coach Nick Rolovich won’t let his team forget that this happened at UH’s home opener: Hawaii 41, Tennessee Martin 36.

Tennessee Martin, a pretty good FCS team, pushed the Rainbow Warriors around in the first half and led 17-14 at halftime. Eventually, UH took advantage of mistakes by the visitors and won its first game of the season and first under its new coach.

Hawaii was still learning how to win. It had just been blown out at Michigan and had lost to Cal in Australia to start the season. UH was coming off a 3-10 season that included no conference wins, capping four years of misery under Norm Chow.

So, at that point, any win was a big win. Now UH is expected to win and is supposed to win, and toward the end of last season and last week at UMass (at least in the fourth quarter), the players performed that way.

They still must avoid penalties and other mistakes. They still can’t take things for granted.

Western Carolina has a running back named Detrez Newsome. He is dangerous, having rushed for over 1,000 yards each of the past two seasons. He has scored 37 touchdowns in his three years with the Catamounts. If UH’s defenders are not ready to play from the start of the game he will run over and around them, just like any other top-flight college running back might.

Ten years ago, UH started its 12-0 regular season with a 63-6 win over Northern Colorado. The Warriors were ranked No. 23 in the country. The blowout was so complete by halftime that Colt Brennan and many of the other starters came back to the field after intermission in street clothes.

On the same day, Appalachian State beat Michigan 34-32 in the game some folks consider football’s equivalent of Chaminade over Virginia in basketball.

Rolovich needs his players to temporarily shelve the dreams of bringing UH back to former glory days and for now reflect on what can befall an unfocused favored team. Maybe they won’t have total recall of the fate of the Wolverines a decade ago, but what nearly happened to their own team — last year against Tennessee Martin and last week at UMass — should be fresh in their minds.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.