A perfect time for a beautiful sunset, telecast across the nation. Late Saturday afternoon, many of us needed a quick reminder about why it’s great to live in Hawaii. When bad things happen to our sports teams, we still have the last laugh because of where we call home … even if we feel like crying.
And thank you, ESPN. You can’t buy that kind of advertising, so the visitors bureau should be happy. The rest of Warrior World, of course, is far from overjoyed after Brigham Young ended the University of Hawaii’s football season and, quite possibly, the tenure of fourth-year head coach Greg McMackin.
The Cougars won 41-20, but the difference was clearly more than three touchdowns, and, once again, the nation saw that UH remains a program not quite ready for the big stage.
Two losing seasons in three years just isn’t going to cut it, especially with heightened expectations after the Warriors made it to the Sugar Bowl with an unbeaten regular season in 2007.
Saturday’s lackluster performance — against a rival, no less — surely brought more folks into the swelling ranks of the Mack Must Go crowd — I mean, what else are we supposed to infer when people who paid hard-earned dollars to watch a football game start leaving en masse before the end of the third quarter, on senior night no less? It was a stay to the end to beat the traffic kind of game.
More excuses can be made for having a crowd of just 30,675 — TV, weather, blah, blah, blah. But it was a sellout when these teams met in 2001 in the game that spawned the Hawaii Bowl the next year. Of course, the difference was UH was going 9-3 then, not 6-7.
UH football fans deserve better. And the 2011 seniors deserved better. Let’s not forget that many of them were big contributors to two bowl teams, including last year’s that went 10-4.
"It was a lot of adversity, a lot of ups and downs," said safety Richard Torres, one of the best pound-for-pound players I’ve ever seen. "Nothing was given and I worked hard to get better for five years."
Hawaii is proud of its many successful walk-ons like Torres, and rightfully so. But when so many starters were not initially deemed worthy of scholarships, what does that say about recruiting?
IF YOU CARE about the long-range prosperity of the Warriors program, the Cougars probably did you and UH a favor by coming into Aloha Stadium ready to play and winning handily. Sure, it stings, but it provides undeniable proof that a change needs to be made — and made yesterday.
Since we’re fresh out of time machines, we’ll have to settle for "soon," with "soon" being sooner than it would’ve been after the Hawaii Bowl, which UH doesn’t have to worry about this year. It would’ve been awkward to let the coach go after beating BYU.
Getting a new coach in place ASAP is imperative in order to salvage recruiting. If UH unadvisedly decides to keep McMackin for the final year of his contract without an extension (and how could you extend him, after Saturday’s game and this past season?) recruiting is shot anyway.
I’ve been told by people with authority at UH that dwindling attendance if the status quo is kept will cost the program more than buying out the coach. Need help with a buyout? I pledge my $1, it will be in the mailbox Monday. If the thousands of fans who stayed home or left the stadium early Saturday do the same, that’s a good start.
We just need to know who to send it to, since the powers-that-be at Manoa have been playing hot potato with it. No one wants to be the bad guy. In this case, though, being the bad guy would be being the good guy. There’s nothing wrong with those beautiful sunsets punctuating wins rather than losses.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783.
