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THIS was bleak … a bad loss for the team representing Hawaii.
Not the Little League World Series game. No, they’re 12-year-old kids; it might seem like the end of the world to them now, but they’ll bounce back.
And what a great run that was, all the way to the semifinals at Williamsport, and down to the last out. A fourth LLWS championship in 16 years for Hawaii just wasn’t meant to be, and the youngsters from Michigan won 2-1.
No, we’re talking about the other game at an iconic venue that had remotes in the islands clicking back and forth between KITV and ESPN, both starting at 9:30 Saturday morning here. That would be the University of Hawaii’s 44-10 season-opening football loss to UCLA at the Rose Bowl.
The Bruins were favored by more than two touchdowns, but UH’s most lopsided defeat since 2018 was still a very disappointing start to year two under coach Todd Graham, after a 5-4 record in year one, capped by a bowl-game win.
But on Saturday, the Rainbow Warriors were dominated in too many ways to count. It was hard to find any bright spots at all from offense, defense or special teams.
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UH fans can take solace in that UCLA is the most talented of the 12 teams on the 2021 schedule.
The game, if you could call it one, was a reminder of why one set of FBS conferences has “Power” in its name and the other merely has “Group.”
In recent years, UCLA hasn’t been great in the Pac-12 and the Pac-12 hasn’t been great in the Power Five. But on Saturday morning the talent difference between the Bruins and Warriors was there for all to see … and as one of just a handful of games a week before most of college football gets going, this UH loss didn’t get lost nationally in the shuffle of dozens of other games.
Hawaii was going for its fifth consecutive season-opening victory, something it hadn’t accomplished since 1970 to ’74. But this was a reality check for UH after a 2020 season when nonconference games were canceled due to COVID-19 and there were none of those mismatches common to late August and September.
The funny thing is that you only have to go back to 2019 — which seems like a million years ago in some ways — to see Hawaii starting the season 2-0, with wins over Pac-12 members Arizona and Oregon State. Those were home games, though, and that makes a lot of difference.
Speaking of which, at least this debacle in Pasadena won’t hurt paid attendance for UH’s home opener six days from now. That was going to be set at zero regardless of what happened at UCLA, because the pandemic and the City and County of Honolulu said so two weeks ago.
That’s out of the team’s control. A lot of what happened Saturday wasn’t, and it’s easy to see why Hawaii got blown out.
The Warriors failed to stop the run. They didn’t force UCLA into mistakes on offense.
The Bruins gave Chevan Cordeiro no time to throw, and they shut down Calvin Turner, limiting the nation’s career leader in all-purpose yardage to 50 yards on five touches and no TDs.
Nearly all of UH’s attempts at misdirection or other deception were smelled out and snuffed. It added up to make Hawaii’s offense look anemic and archaic and rendered it ineffective for nearly the entire game.
Hawaii made more big special teams mistakes than it does in some seasons; the UH punt that was blocked was its first in 13 years, ending the longest streak in the nation.
The Warriors performed as if they’d never been up against as talented an opponent before … and some, indeed, had not.
This game is never easy. But, barring key injuries, it won’t be as hard as it was in the season opener for Hawaii the next three months, starting this Saturday against Portland State.
Not all 20-year-olds are as resilient as 12-year-olds. But this time the Warriors will be the double-digit favorites playing at home.
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