After a preseason like no other in its history, the University of Hawaii football team has its defense up for the training surge to the Oct. 24 season opener.

“There’s that old ‘Rocky II’ movie,” defensive coordinator Victor Santa Cruz said, “where Mickey the trainer says, ‘hey, what are we waitin’ for?’ The coaches love coaching football. The players love playing football. Getting back on the field and competing, any time you get a chance to do that, you take it. We’re full steam ahead and excited about the opportunity. And we’re going to do whatever we can to make this the best football program. One day at a time.”

The Warriors have been making up for lost time during the pandemic. The two defensive leaders — head coach Todd Graham, who was hired in January, and Santa Cruz, who relinquished his head coaching job at Azusa Pacific to return to his alma mater — had planned to use spring training to evaluate players’ skills in piecing a new attacking defense. But the pandemic led to the cancellation of spring practice, the limitations on summer workouts, and the 45-day delay to the start of training camp. The Warriors’ practice was put on pause for two days after four players received positive coronavirus results the past Wednesday.

But the UH coaches appear hopeful they can create a defense that will cause opposing quarterbacks to have chaotic Saturdays.

“We’re going to find ways to get to the quarterback,” Santa Cruz said. “It’s a mark about what we want to do here. The war-dog defense. We want to attack. We want to make sure we’re relentless in our effort and our pursuit. We want to attack the ball. When it comes to quarterbacks, they have the ball in their hands every time. They’re the ones you need to keep putting pressure on and force them to make decisions faster than they’d really like to. That helps our guys be powerful, be direct in every step and every snap and, ‘hey, let’s keep the pressure on them.’”

During the spring, the Warriors evaluated videos of every player, even going back into the archives of their high school games. The assessment continued through walk-through sessions in July and during the current training period.

“You want to do it right,” Santa Cruz said. “Doing it right, you want to be methodical and make sure you have complete evaluations and everyone’s in the right spot. Like Coach (Graham) always says — and it’s a firm belief — you don’t want to force a system on them. You want to find out what these guys do well, what they do best. As you figure out what they do best, you can design things that fit their strengths.”

That approach helped Graham boost defenses at two previous jobs. In 2010, Pittsburgh averaged 2.62 sacks per game. The next season, Graham’s lone year as the Panthers’ head coach, the average rose to 3.31. Defensive lineman Aaron Donald had two sacks as a Pittsburgh freshman in 2010, and 11 in 2011 under Graham. Arizona State averaged 1.85 sacks per game in 2011 and the next year, Graham’s first as Sun Devils’ coach, 3.92.

“This is why Coach (Graham) has been so successful,” Santa Cruz said. “He’s an amazing evaluator of talent. The great coaches are the ones who can put the players in the best situations to be successful.”

This camp, linebacker Darius Muasau and safety Khoury Bethley have gained early notice. “He came on strong as a freshman,” Santa Cruz said of Muasau’s play in 2019. “Now with a year under his belt, you see somebody who is full of discipline, that warrior spirit we always talk about that we build programs upon.”

Bethley, who can play in coverage or mix it up in the box, also has emerged as a defensive leader. “You see him having a really good spirit about him,” Santa Cruz said.

Santa Cruz was a member of the 1992 UH team that went 11-2, defeating Illinois in the Holiday Bowl. While that defense featured future NFL players Ma‘a Tanuvasa and Taase Faumui, it also contained workmanlike linebackers Stewart Williams, Louis Randall, and a gritty Santa Cruz.

To me, this is one of the most unique and special things about the program,” Santa Cruz said. “The success of our program has been through the variety of those type of people who are just able to rise above what the exterior should be like, what the scouting services say you should be. That’s what’s special about this place.”