The University of Hawaii football team will get a second chance to become the first FBS team to secure a 2018 bowl berth when it plays host to Nevada today at Aloha Stadium.
Kickoff for the Mountain West Conference game is scheduled for 6:05 p.m.
The Rainbow Warriors, who are 6-2 overall and 3-0 in the Mountain West, missed a chance to clinch a winning 13-game regular season and qualify for an accompanying berth in the Dec. 22 Hawaii Bowl when they lost to Brigham Young in a nonconference game last week in Provo, Utah.
The reward remains in play — with a dramatic back story — as the Warriors seek to remain atop the league’s West Division standings.
It will be another reunion for UH coach Nick Rolovich, who was Nevada’s quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator for four seasons through 2015. In November 2015, Rolovich accepted an offer to return to his alma mater. He was a UH quarterback in 2000 and 2001, a graduate assistant for a year, and assistant coach/coordinator for four years. He did not coach in the Wolf Pack’s bowl game that season.
“I appreciate Nevada,” Rolovich said. “I appreciated my time at Nevada. I enjoyed living there. I enjoyed the community. I enjoyed the administration, and everyone involved with the football program. We had a lot of fun.”
GAME DAY: NEVADA AT HAWAII
>> Kickoff: 6 p.m. Aloha Stadium
>> TV: Spectrum Sports
>> Radio: KKEA 1420-AM
>> Line: UH by 3
Soon after he left the Wolf Pack, Nevada de-activated his university-issued email account.
Timmy Chang, a record-setting UH quarterback who was Rolovich’s teammate for two years, is in his second season as a Nevada assistant coach. Last year, Chang coached the inside receivers, helping to develop top slotback McLane Mannix. This year, Chang is coaching the tight ends. This will be the first time Chang has coached at Aloha Stadium since 2012, when he was graduate assistant at SMU and the Mustangs played Fresno State in the Hawaii Bowl.
Nevada will face a UH team that is 4-0 at home, and averaging 40.3 points and 456.3 yards per game at Aloha Stadium. The Warriors offense has evolved, melding the run-pass option with the run-and-shoot. Against BYU last week, the Warriors went with a five-receiver, no-back formation for 15 plays. In that game, Rolovich said, the UH coaches and players made “some of our better in-game adjustments as a group. … I thought there were a lot of good observations.”
Rolovich said the Warriors were successful with some of the plays they did not even practice.
“Whatever works,” said quarterback Cole McDonald, who has thrown for 2,348 yards and 26 touchdowns against three interceptions this season. “Sometimes, the defense will show us something that takes a certain thing away. Adjusting to it on the run is something we’re about in this run-and-shoot.”
The Warriors have played on eight consecutive weekends without a break. Their only free Saturday is on Nov. 10. They have traveled 27,412 miles on commercial flights, and played in three time zones on the mainland, including two games in high altitude.
“We don’t even think about it,” Rolovich said. “It is what it is. We’re not going to change venues. … Our guys haven’t complained about it once.”
Because of Hawaii’s isolation, Rolovich said, “they’re doing something no one in the country has to do. We’re kind of in that (former Fresno State coach) Pat Hill mind-set. Anyone, anywhere … whatever he used to say. If you sit there and talk about it, they’re going to find excuses why they shouldn’t win. There are no excuses why we shouldn’t win. Not as a Warrior.”
