The odds of the University of Hawaii football team achieving bowl eligibility this year are decidedly long, but it is clear they would have been long dead in the water without linebacker Jahlani Tavai.
Tavai leads the Rainbow Warriors in tackles this season, but it was one he didn’t make that, perhaps, says the most about what he brings to this team across several fronts in its games of need.
The ’Bows require at least three victories in their four remaining games, beginning with Saturday’s road appearance at Nevada-Las Vegas, to achieve a 6-6 regular-season record necessary for bowl eligibility.
And if the ’Bows’ chances of managing that are hanging by a thread — or even a flapping shirttail — Tavai is the guy you want trying to hold onto them.
Maybe you were part of the handful at Aloha Stadium to witness it first hand, saw it on ESPN or, later on, viewed it on YouTube, where it has attracted more than 32,000 “likes” on Twitter. But the tenacity in Tavai’s bid to bring down San Diego State’s all-conference running back Rashaad Penny was both revealing and symbolic.
Penny, the Mountain West Conference’s most productive running back, was operating in open space in the second quarter, seemingly end zone-bound on a second-and-6 situation. Except for Tavai, that is, who was attempting to cling to him like an opihi.
Tavai’s gloved, outstretched left hand held determinedly to a flapping piece of material as Penny sought to break free. For 8 yards Tavai hung on to the 5-foot-11, 220-pounder, legs churning, as if riding a bucking bronco.
In the end, despite the considerable resolve, Tavai was unable to make the tackle but what he was able to do was slow down Penny enough so that a teammate, safety Daniel Lewis Jr., could step up and complete the stop after a 12-yard gain.
Not that we should be all that surprised, of course. While that tackle eluded Tavai, 10 others against San Diego State, a game-high figure for both teams, did not. Nor have a team-high 71 over the course of the season so far escaped his grasp — 23 more than anybody else at UH.
In this, Tavai, UH’s man in the middle, leads by deed and demeanor. When a teammate is down, he is the one who extends a hand, physically and spiritually. When he took a shot to the back that seemed, for a time, might take take him out of the San Jose State game, he returned in short order, a key component in the victory.
When the ’Bows’ offense struggled against San Diego State while the defense was holding its own for a while, Tavai could be seen in the bench area exhorting the offense to finds its rhythm. Not chewing out the underachieving unit so much but trying to instill some positive energy.
The combination has made him a candidate on the Nagurski Trophy (presented to the nation’s most outstanding defensive player by the Charlotte Touchdown Club) and the Bednarik Award (presented annually to the defensive player in college football adjudged by the Maxwell Football Club) lists this season.
Whether it might also inspire Tavai to takes his chances and come out of UH after this, his junior season, for the NFL Draft remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, with bowl eligibility still a mathematical possibility, Tavai is the guy the Rainbow Warriors are counting on to try and hold onto their thin postseason hopes.
And, really, what better hands could they be in?
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
