Hawaii Rainbow Warriors 2016 NCAA Football Preview
HAWAII RAINBOW WARRIORS
Mountain West Conference – West Division
2015 Record – 3-10
ATS – 3-10
2016 MEGALOCKS Opening Power Rating Rank
West Division #5
Conference #11
2015 Recap
Hawaii started out nicely beating Colorado as a TD underdog at home in week one – and as far as we could tell – they did it legitimately without any “island magic”. The schedule after that was just ridiculous and it sent them on a downward spiral. Road contests at Ohio St, Wisconsin and Boise St in a four-game span. Needless to say they were pounded (combined score 121-0 – FOR REAL) mercilessly and never recovered. Overall they were bad on offense. Bad on defense. They turned it over way too many times (-23 in turnover margin – ranked 127th NCAA). Yuck. HC Norm Chow was let go during the season and in comes former Nevada OC and ex-Hawaii QB Nick Rolovich to try and turn things around.
2016 Preview
OFFENSE
Hawaii is going to throw the ball a lot more this season. They have to do a lot better than the 2015 passing game that only put up 12 TD passes the entire season. Hawaii football legends Timmy Chang and Colt Brennan used to do that seemingly in a couple of quarters vs bad teams. Ikaika Woolsey will likely get the start out of the gate at QB as he is the only signal caller with game experience on his resume. Hawaii has some young QBs on the roster and time will tell how this plays out.
The running game is in excellent shape. They return RB Paul Harris who ran for over 1,100 yards last season and the offensive line is a good run-blocking unit that will pave the way for all the RBs. They have some nice depth behind Harris so the good news is that the Hawaii offense should have something to hang its hat on before the QB situation sorts itself out. The returning WR group is good enough to do some damage as well once it becomes clear that they have a QB that is able to MATRICULATE down the field in the passing game.
DEFENSE
Hawaii could not do much of anything on defense last season and that included forcing turnovers (3 INT in 13 games). New DC Kevin Lempa will get these guys playing smarter and more aggressive but we are not sure they have all the tools in the toolbox to get things in order in one season. MEGALOCKS CRIME BLOTTER INSIDERS informed us that their top DL Kennedy Tulimasealii has been kicked off the team and that is a big loss (1st team Mountain West performer).
SPECIAL TEAMS
This unit looks to be in good shape. PK Rigoberto Sanchez made 8/11 FG and the return game was decent. They will break in a new punter in 2016. Hawaii lost a very good ST coordinator which makes us wonder if they can maintain last season’s fine overall performance.
MEGALOCKS ATS Value Rating (10) 4.0
MEGALOCKS says:
Hawaii is another team undergoing a pretty significant overhaul. The running game should be fine. However, we have concerns about how much progress the passing game can make and will be watching to see how camp goes in August. The defense may surprise. It’s hard to know.
Overall, we give the RAINBOW WARRIORS a 4.0 ATS Value Rating (Below Average) this season. Hawaii is going to be big underdogs in several games and that alone has us interested. Once again however, the schedule is going to be a travel nightmare. Yes – we are aware they are based in Hawaii – but they have a killer early stretch (trips to Michigan and Arizona in a 3-week span) and do not get back-to-back home games even once the entire season. Oh, did we mention they start things off in Australia in August before they go to Michigan, MATE ? Crickey ! The fact that this is a transition year, combined with the heinous travel requirements, make us think you need to pick your spots with Hawaii ATS this season.
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