There’s really no such thing as a game-time decision.
Game-time announcement, sure.
Just like Nevada did last week at this point, Norm Chow has a good idea who his starting quarterback is going to be for Saturday’s game against Fresno State.
That doesn’t mean he has to say anything. It would make no sense to do so. Better to leave himself with the option to change his mind before kickoff.
And why make things easier for the Bulldogs? They’re already favored by 18 1/2 points to make the Rainbow Warriors 0-4 after UH’s first home conference game. No need to be hospitable and let Fresno State know which QB to prepare for.
Taylor Graham, Jeremy Higgins, Sean Schroeder and Ikaika Woolsey (notice how I put them in alphabetical order?) all have their pluses and minuses.
So it was fitting that Garrett Gabriel made an appearance at practice Thursday. When Gabriel arrived as a freshman at UH he was mired on the quarterback depth chart behind a bunch of guys, a drop-back passer who arrived just in time for an offensive switch to the spread option.
Whoops.
But everything turned out OK, as Gabriel hung around long enough to become the starter and blast BYU in 1989 and again in 1990.
In Monday’s paper I wrote that if Graham’s shoulder injury keeps him out I want the freshman Woolsey to play. It would be the best move for the future of the program. Maybe not the short-term, but definitely the long-term.
He’s an athletic freshman with a strong arm and we don’t know where the ceiling is for him. We kind of know where it is with Higgins and Schroeder (as does Fresno State, since there’s much more tape out there on those two seniors than there is of Woolsey.
The Bulldogs are 3-0 but I’m not sure they are deserving of the No. 25 ranking they’ve been given this week in the AP poll. A Friday night 1-point win over Boise State got them a lot of votes. But a win over the Broncos (2-2) now isn’t what it used to be. And Fresno State also barely outlasted Rutgers in a 52-51 shootout to start the season, at home.
As excellent as quarterback Derek Carr and the Fresno offense has played, its defense looks vulnerable. In points allowed, the Bulldogs are 114th of 123 teams, with 38.7 per game. That’s symptomatic of an average yield of 506.7 yards for 116th.
Hawaii put together three decent drives last Saturday against Nevada, and actually outgained the Pack in the 31-9 loss. But six turnovers, all in the second half, and penalties killed UH. The mistakes and injuries also overshadowed a running game that had improved in the first half with freshman back Diocemy Saint Juste.
The Rainbows have a fairly recent history of beating the Bulldogs with quarterbacks who had come out of nowhere. It happened in 2008 with Inoke Funaki and then in 2010 with Bryant Moniz.
But whoever lines up behind center must improve on UH’s standing of 121st in turnover margin (11-4 in three games). If he doesn’t, none of the other stuff will matter at all.
