Warrior Beat: Hawaii football hits local recruiting circuit
If your Oahu high school fields a varsity football team, that was a UH football coach wearing an H-logo shirt on your campus on Monday.
The NCAA’s evaluation period for football prospects began this week. It is a time when college assistant coaches may visit a football-playing school to meet with coaches, teachers and counselors to discuss football prospects.
UH coach Nick Rolovich‘s plan was to make sure an assistant coach visited every Oahu school with a football team.
“We wanted to make sure we got out there on the first day,” Rolovich said. “Whether it’s the office manager, whether it’s the principal, whether it’s the teachers, the first thing they saw when recruiting came out was an ‘H’ walking through their school.”
Linebackers coach Mark Banker said: “First day, the first thing we do is take care of the home base. … We wanted to make home a focus. The players in high school — the recruitable athletes — aren’t going to make us first if we don’t make them first. Our intent is to do the very best we can from, one, an evaluation and knowing, and two, to keep as many players from the state of Hawaii at home and make UH a first choice.”
By the time the period ends, UH will have visited every football-playing school in the state at least once, maybe twice.
“We’re out there with our ‘H’s’ on,” assistant coach Jacob Yoro said.
Hard work by the staff
Speaking of hard work, Dru Brown is/was splitting reps at QB in spring practice at Oklahoma St., with a 2017 Texas (high school) Player of the Year, Spencer Sanders.
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No verify not a robot pictures today to post, so far
Go Warriors; speaking of recruiting:
Got this email recently from Rolo:
Tom,
I wanted to take a moment and thank you for spearheading the creation and consistent monitoring of the Warrior Nation account. The current funds will go towards supplementing our recruiting budget. With the addition of a 10th coach by the NCAA, we saw the impact on multiple budget lines, but none greater than in recruiting. Also, the impact you make with our away crowd is fantastic. This team has a special feeling about it, excited to see what we are during spring ball. I hope all is well with you and all of our Warrior faithful. Hope you and your crew enjoyed the SJSU post game festivities in the stands! Look forward to talking again soon.
—
Best Wishes and Aloha,
Nick Rolovich
Head Football Coach
University of Hawaii
#LiveAlohaPlayWarrior
http://www.hawaiiathletics.com/index.aspx
https://twitter.com/NickRolovich
Can you help me reach my goal by making a $25 donation to the UH Foundation Fund I created for UH Football recruiting–see below link.
If 2000 fans do this, we will raise $50,000.
So far, I got 776 donors ($19,400), so only 1,224 more donors to go! After donating, text me your name to 415-324-0585 or email your receipt to: tomkitaguchi@yahoo.com.
Mahalo, and please share this with all of your fellow fans.
Tom Kitaguchi, founder of Hawaii Football Warrior Nation Facebook group (over 3200 members)
https://www.uhfoundation.org/impact/students/warrior-nation
Go get ’em coaches!
Islandman:
I like Dru. Nice guy. He graduated from UH, did his time, and I wish him well.
As they say … in love and recruiting, first impressions are lasting ones. Well done, coaches.
Hey Tom thanks for what you’re doing for UH. Just emailed you. Now you only need 1,223 more donors.
Y’know, Stephen, yesterday’s paper proclaimed that Hawaii’s planning on going for some of the underclassmen like Mason Tufaga, 6’1″, 180 lbs, and Wynden Hoohuli, 6’3″, 220 lbs. Hoohuli’s also gotten offers from Arizona and Utah as well. Tufaga’s gotten multiple Pac-12 offers and an SEC opponent in South Carolina. Also, Hugh Brady (No relation to a Tom Brady, sorry Patriots fans) currently has received only a scholarship to Hawaii. So…this could be an interesting pickup to see how the UH football team hits the books on the recruiting train.
I love the dedication to the local HS’s, but we’ll probably get 2 maybe 3 of the top 25 in the state.
The best recruiters are the players themselves, so even if we get 2 or 3 of the top recruits this year, that makes it possible for us to get 3 or 4 the next year, and hopefully more the next year and so on as the top players see the top players from the previous class give UH a real look. Stringing together more than one winning season helps as well, as would beating one of our pac12 opponents this coming season…
Come visit the neighbor islands!
Hope someone gives Trey Hunter a look from King Kekaulike. Holds the state record for receiving yards in a game. Also ran a handheld timed 4:45 40.
I love the motto about putting local kids first if you want them to prioritize UH
ST:
yes, great recruiting plan by UH.
any schedule for outer island visits? maybe few and far between, but most players have taken the mainland route in football
LET’S KEEP THEM HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
KEEP THEM HOME! KEEP THEM HOME!! KEEP THEM HOME!!!
Have there really been no posts since this morning?
Spring training seems to be going well. Excited about next season!!
And go Volley Bows! Win the tournament!
I noticed that ST is a little less liberal with what he posts here. My assumption on rationale is to get more people to actually read the SA (subscription required). ST has spoiled us in the past by pretty much posting a lot of what you would read in the paper. Not the case lately.
Mr. Tsai, are the baseball and basketball blogs going to be a regular thing or just an experiment? I hope the latter as you already have too much to do.
These coaches do these things because recruiting is so important~ Let’s Go Bows! Well Done Rolo and UH coaching team ~
There is only so much a coaching staff can say to a prospect no matter how good of a recruiter he or she is capable of being. Ultimately the State will have to help in some way to up the ante if we are going to compete with comparable schools facility wise. Kids and their parents visit a campus and see the priority schools put in athletic and school facilities including dorms and it’s a hard sell to keep the kids home. As a parent that sent both kids to the mainland I know this first hand. One kid went to a school in the midwest and another in the northwest. One student center looked like the Halekulani Hotel with every student service readily available and the student workout facility (10 years ago) looked like the new one at UH now but bigger and the other school has had three or more brand new dorms built in the last 10 years. Along with new science and technology buildings. But the thing that was most impressive to me was the upkeep of the facilities. Everything was clean and sparkling including the grounds and every effort was made to sell the university to the parents who many times influence the choices that are made. Both schools my kids attended were not power 5 schools. Most importantly is that both kids are now financially secure with great careers in front of them.
What a game for UH baseball, walk-off 3- run HR by Pouelsen to win 8-6, with 2 outs.
https://twitter.com/HawaiiBaseball/status/1119509150319271936
First to post on Saturday, April 20!
Kinpira VolleyBows!!!
Got another tel call at dinner time from UH (Foundation) asking for money. Why they keep asking poor asses like me, is puzzling I donate to what I can and when I can, but I’m only one “manini kine.” Why not go after some of the local players and corporations in town? Maybe too shy or scared?
Agree with Turfwars that the State needs to do more to improve the entire Manoa campus to make it an attractive option. Upkeep is always a problem there, along with poorly manicured or unkept lawns or weeds growing wild (how come the East-West Center, across the street is so nice compared to UH?). Provide more services, particularly to dorm residents such as building a full-sized 24/7 food pantry or a 7-11, instead of making them walk to Market CIty or Times for groceries or food when Gateway is closed. Noticed that there are no food options on campus on weekends at Manoa. School such as UW will have at least some of their restaurants and Starbucks open on weekends, (used to go to Pagliachi Pizza often when I lived there).
The list goes on…….
Today’s practice. JMO, Justin Uahinui may have passed Cordeiro. Cole looked sharp, except he missed wide-open receivers for TDs. Missed two easy ones. Mason Vega one of the walking wounded. He is all muscle at 265. No fat on him. Jeremiah Pritchard also walking wounded in streets. Miles Reed and Fred Holly III are the two top RBs, with the edge to Reed. He has a little more shift in him.
Huzzah VolleyBows!
With the incoming recruits and players coming back. Can someone post a link of the new depth chart.
Mahalo nui H man for the update!
Happy Easter, too!
For those interested but unable to attend, the 2s on the O-line starting from LT was, for the most part, Ernest Moore, Alesana Sunia, Eliki Tanuvasa, Micah Vanterpool and Joey Nu’uanu Kuhi’iki.
Thanks for the updates H-Man
#28.
So does that mean Gene Pryor has moved ahead of Joey, at RT ?
ST had an article on Pryor, last week.
#30. Yeah, I would say Pryor for now. Lots can happen between now and opening game. Speaking of Joey, he looks huge. With his size and feet, I like him at guard, but they need depth at tackle. Behind Joey is freshman Thomas Wade. He’s young and needs a lot of time in the weight room, but his technique is good and he has a lot of enthusiasm. You won’t find him standing around.
#31. Thanks H-Man for the updates.
Good news that Joey is getting bigger.
Also good news about FR Thomas Wade.
Looks like the O-line has depth, and is also building for the future.
Hawaii can still win the Big West. Today’s game is meaningless. These midweek stand-alone games make no sense to me. It’s like an automatic L because you’re saving your best pitchers for conference games. Just call up UH-Hilo to fill the “pukas”.
It bodes well that Tanuvasa did not break the first team yet, it means we have good depth and a solid rotation in the works..,
Michael Eletise in the mix?
This two deep O-line depth chart looks pretty exciting. Vaipulu and Manning are studs and Levao gives us huge size at center and should be much improved after a full off season working at that position. RT was always iffy so it’s nice to see that Pryor might be solidifying it and I was never sold on Hensley because he always had a ton of dumb penalties. I could see Eletise challenging at RT and Joey challenging Hensley at guard. Lots of options which is exciting.
Will the spring game be televised online for future recruits and fans that can’t attend?
I hope everything is okay with the Tsai-master. Sure missing the days of a post every day. SA working him too hard.
New post: https://www.hawaiiwarriorworld.com/?p=49524