Hawaii football: Valuing possessions vs. Air Force not optional
Make each one count.
Each one being possessions. That’s the message — offensively, anyway — as Hawaii prepares for Air Force in a second straight cross-divisional Mountain West matchup at 5 p.m. Saturday at Aloha Stadium.
“Ground Force” has a way of making the seconds tick all the way down on teams with its triple-option offense. The Falcons dominated time of possession, 39:29 to Fresno State’s 20:31, a 43-24 win over the Bulldogs on Saturday.
Give it away, or punt it away, against Air Force, and you might not get it back for a long, long time.
But, to Nick Rolovich’s way of thinking, there’s no cause for concern if UH does what it’s supposed to do when it has the ball.
“None,” Rolovich said in response to a question of how much time of possession mattered in this weekend’s game. “Possessions matter. Points per possessions matter. Time of possession is not important as, we’ll get less possessions than we usually do and we gotta make ’em count.”
Here’s #HawaiiFB coach Nick Rolovich on Air Force’s clock-draining triple-option offense that is coming to Aloha Stadium on Saturday.
“Time of possession is not important as, we’ll get less possessions than we usually do, and we gotta make em count.” pic.twitter.com/XZzz09J2Es
— Hawaii Warrior World (@hawaiiwworld) October 15, 2019
UH did not make its possessions count last Saturday; it had three fumbles that resulted in three Boise State touchdowns in a 59-37 loss to the No. 14 Broncos on “The Blue”.
“After stretch (at practice on Tuesday), Coach Rolo had to come in and talk to us. He said, ‘We can’t let Boise beat us twice,’ ” said senior linebacker Solomon Matautia. “Meaning, we don’t want to drag it on and have a slow start. We had a slow start in the beginning (at practice), and Rolo came and talked to us and everybody picked it up. I think it was a pretty good day.”
Matautia added that Rolovich made an Arena Football analogy to Air Force in “making every possession count. Defense, we gotta do our job and get some stops.”
UH and AFA are vying for the Kuter Trophy, which UH took from the Falcons in a 34-27 double-overtime win at the academy in 2016. That marked the first time UH took possession of it since 2001.
Linebacker Solomon Matautia talked about the Kuter Trophy being on the line when #HawaiiFB meets Air Force on Saturday at Aloha Stadium.
UH currently holds all three perpetual trophies (Paniolo, Ninth Island). pic.twitter.com/rDz21AlVrk
— Hawaii Warrior World (@hawaiiwworld) October 15, 2019
Against Fresno, Air Force rolled up 340 yards of offense on the ground. Fullback Timothy Jackson rushed for 117 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries; Taven Birdow ran for 73 yards and a score on 18 carries; and Kaden Remsberg had 89 yards on 11 carries. Quarterback Donald Hammond III added two rushing touchdowns, while passing just three times for 83 yards.
Fresno actually led at halftime, 24-22, before the Falcons scored 21 unanswered in the second half. The Bulldogs were held to 25 yards of offense after intermission.
Predictions this week:
Kekoa us-53 them-31
bg us-45 them-24
Wow, AF really took Fresno to the woodshed last week. Fresno had a bye week to prepare. But, we aint Fresno. AF’s does really well at home (altitude) and that’s where they beat-up Fresno. FSU led at the half but didn’t score in the second half.
Appears AF is more vulnerable to passing than running (I bet they have a hard time imitating a passing game). Their idea of passing is to run 10x in a row, then go long off play-action. It works for them. Should be a real interesting game. Can they stop us…can we stop them. Come to the stadium and find out!
Assignment defense and discipline. We’ll see how Batoon’s Boyz handle. Offensively the Warriors just got to stop giving the other guys the ball for free.
Last year our defense seemed to do really well against the option. They stepped up big against Navy (at home) and Army (on the road). From what I remember in those two games, the defense made some stops early in the game that took the pressure off the offense. They built a 3 or 4 TD lead over Navy in the 1st half, and against Army they should’ve went up 14-0 in the first quarter but a costly drop snatched that momentum away from the offense. Still think UH will prove a bigger test for AFA than Fresno State.
AF 41 UH 34 UH will have trouble stopping the run.
Defense. Warriors have to step up and show some discipline.