Reserve quarterback Zach Daniel is leaving the University of Hawaii football team.
Daniel, who was born and reared in Houston, has entered the NCAA’s transfer portal, school officials confirmed.
As a redshirt in 2019, his first season with the Rainbow Warriors, Daniel was a versatile quarterback on the scout unit that simulated opposing offenses each week in practices.
Daniel’s departure leaves the Warriors with at least six quarterbacks for the training-camp roster. Last week, head coach Todd Graham declared Chevan Cordeiro, who will be a third-year sophomore in the fall, as the No. 1 quarterback. In 2019, Cordeiro started three games — all victories — in spelling Cole McDonald. McDonald, who opted not to return for his senior season, was the Tennessee Titans’ seventh-round selection in last week’s NFL Draft.
Fifth-year senior Kamali‘i Akina, who began his career at Arizona; fourth-year junior Justin Uahinui, and second-year freshman Boone Abbott are the other returning quarterbacks. Quarterbacks Armani Edden of College of the Canyons (Santa Clarita, Calif.) and Jake Farrell, a 2019 graduate of Notre Dame Prep in Arizona, announced they will be joining the Warriors this summer. Farrell played this past season at East Coast Prep, a post-graduate school in Great Barrington, Mass.
Daniel was a heralded dual-skilled quarterback at The Kinkaid School. As a senior, he earned all-state honors after throwing for 3,266 yards and 31 touchdowns in 2018.
Kinkaid competes in the Southwest Preparatory Conference, which is composed of select private schools in Texas and Oklahoma. Daniel was a member of Kinkaid’s SPC state championship teams in 2015, 2017 and 2018.Kinkaid used a run-and-shoot scheme similar to the one the Rainbow Warriors ran the past two seasons. This season, the Warriors will be going with a hybrid “run and gun” offense that mixes elements of the run-and-shoot and Air Raid.