Na Koa Lunch Report (8/23/10)

Na Koa Lunch Report (8/23/10)

Head Coach Greg McMackin was the speaker at the first Na Koa lunch for the 2010 season held at The Willows restaurant on August 23, 2010(more)

Warrior 8/21/10 Practice

8/21/10 Practice

By: NelsonO

Paipai Falemanu sat out practice this morning and Aaron Brown continues to be out, so linebacker Art Laurel took reps with the first team.

Though he was just throwing against the scout team, Bryant Moniz looked very good today as he connected on a bunch of long passes including bombs to Allen Sampson, Kealoha Pilares, and Royce Pollard.

QB Kevin Spain had his arm (and shoulder) in a sling at today’s practice.

The kick-off team got in some work. Back deep to return the kicks were Greg Salas, Royce Pollard, and Allen Sampson.

I noticed for the first time that freshman TJ Taimatuia took some reps at defensive end.

Curiously, Corey Nielsen and the scout team ran a lot of option against the first team defense.

One of the things I like about Coach Aranda is that his defenses are not vanilla. He runs a lot of different alignments, moves players from one side to another on subsequent plays, mixes up coverages, and disguises his blitzes.

In some packages, look for Corey Paredes to play middle linebacker.

Brett Leonard split time between left guard and center. He also wore a different number (#54) today.

The team, or at least most of the team, practiced the Haka after practice. The defensive linemen ran hills after practice.

At the end of practice, the team went into the hurry-up, two-minute drill. To simulate crowd noise during the two-minute drill, they played some very loud music. The coaches must have selected the music which included songs by Al Green. They should have played the primal screams by Jim Donovan after he heard Fresno and Nevada were leaving the WAC.

8/10 Practice Notes

8/10 Practice Notes
By uhwarriors

Only got to see the last half of practice, so I focused on the offense. My observations are:

1) Moniz’s arm appears to be stronger than last year.
2) Bright practiced
3) QBs and receivers are deeper into the playbook than at the same time last year
4) Rolo and Davis broke the QBs and receivers into two groups and worked with them seperately on occasion. The benefit of this is that the newcomers got more attention and instruction from Davis, while Rolo worked with the more experienced group.
5) The young O-linemen are big (Loeffler, Shigematsu, Lefotu, Afusia)
6) Sampson is fast
7) Sapolu is the No. 2 center behind Tiwanek
8) Cravens looks to be very quick off the edge as a pass rusher
9) Dean looks like a basketball player, but we know what happened with the last basketball player that played DE (i.e. Alama-Francis)

Join the discussion:  8/10 Practice Notes

Saturday’s Warrior Practice 8/7

Saturday’s Warrior Practice 8/7
By Nelson O

Some impressions on Saturday’s Warrior practice:

I forgot to bring my roster with me to practice, so apologies in advance if I misidentify anybody.

The QBs may be getting equal reps. But today Bryant Moniz was getting the reps with the first team, so consider him the frontrunner. Nothing against Moniz but I’m pulling for Brent Rausch. I’m hoping he pulls a Rolovich (think 2001 season) and comes up big for his senior season. However judging from the order on how the QBs were taking the reps, Rausch right now is down in the depth chart.

Kevin Spain may be injured, but he was helping out on the scout team (as a safety). Cayman Shutter also worked out with the scout team (as a QB).

Coach Lee is helping out with the defensive line, specifically the defensive ends. Coach Aranda oversaw the linebacker drills.

No big surprises with the guys lining up as the first team. Cornerback Kawika Ornellas filled in for the injured Lametrius Davis. Today, right wide out Billy Ray Stuzmann was taking reps with the first team. Kamalu Umu was the first defensive right end.

During the special teams session, John Hardy-Tuliau blocked a field goal. But after today I don’t think Hardy-Tuliau will be the recipient of soft elbows as he comes around the corner.

And I still have not seen a Warrior offensive linemen in a three point stance.

Join the Discussion:  Saturday’s Warrior Practice

List your top high school football players by position!

HRC Paul did a great job again stimulating interesting discussions in our High School Forums.  This time the topic is Hawaii’s top High School football players for the 2010-2011 season.  Don’t let your favorite high school player be left out of this list.  Join the discussion now!

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Offensive Line

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Defensive Line

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: WR/SB/TE

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Cornerbacks

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Quarterbacks

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Specialists

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Linebackers

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Running Backs

Football 2010, Top Players by Position: Safeties

Or if you would like to join other discussions in our high school forum.

1st and 10 with Jim Donovan (August Edition)

The Sports Hawaii Ohana was blessed again in August when the best Athletic Director in the Nation stopped by and did his monthly questions and answers session.  Here is just one of the questions from this month’s chat:

J-Rod wrote:
Mr. Donovan,

Thanks again for taking time to answer our questions!

The conference realignment talk has dwindled since Boise made their move two months ago. I know the WAC is content with staying at 8 conference members for the time being, but what school(s) would you personally like to see join the WAC?

J-Rod -

The WAC has called a meeting for all athletic directors in mid-August and conference realignment will be a major point of discussion at this meeting. In some sense, I’m open to ideas and possibilities, but my overriding concern is that we work towards a vision of where we want the WAC to be in 5-10 years from now. For example, do we want to go after television markets? Do we want to focus primarily on adding membership based on success or potential success of an institution’s football and men’s basketball programs (most of these programs earn post-season revenues and are still considered the most popular from a media standpoint)? Do we focus on the academic quality of the institutions we might add? Any and all of these will be a logical approach, but we need to prioritize our thoughts on these parameters as a conference and then move from there. I would hate to name any specific schools at this point, but my goal is to make sure that whomever we add moves us towards our long-term vision for the WAC.

Join the discussion:  August 2nd 1st and 10 with JD

Na Koa Televised Fundraiser this August

This was my question for JD during this month’s 1st and 10 with Jim Donovan.

Aloha Jim, are there any upcoming camps, functions, fundraisers, activities, events etc that we can help you pass the word on to the Sports Hawaii Ohana and fans?

Scott -

We are in the process of putting together a Na Koa televised fundraiser tentatively scheduled for August 17th, which would be telecast on KFVE. It will be about 2-1/2 hours long and proceeds will go to UH Football. More details to come out soon.

We still have summer camps and clinics going on for various sports. Here’s the website for more information:
List of Available Camps

On September 8th, we will be hosting the UH Golf Tournament at Industry Hills Golf Club in Los Angeles, CA. If you’re in the area, come on out for a great day of fun and golf to support UH Athletics. We will be posting the flyer shortly on the website at: www.koaanuenue.org
Click on “Calendar of Events”. In the meantime, you can call 956-3459 for more information.

Of course, we’d love to sell out the USC football game. We know you all are season-ticket holders, but please talk to colleagues, friends and coworkers to come on out for the game. It would be an awesome start to the season to have 50,000 screaming Warrior fans.

2010 SportsHawaii Online Media Guide

Bigwave96744 once again holds the title for “THE BEST HAWAII FOOTBALL ONLINE MEDIA GUIDE in the world!!!” Please check it out and get to know our new and returning players.

2010 SportsHawaii Online Media Guide

Aloha SportsHawaii Ohana,
It’s that time of the year when we begin to get to know the 2010 Warriors.

I will start with the GrayShirts / True Freshman / Transfers / and Potential Walkons that have already reported in the Spring.

Then I will go to the RS Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.
The last group will be the incoming Freshman and JC Transfers (once they have enrolled in school).

A majority of the info will be gotten from the UH Website, Stephen Tsai’s Warrior Beat, Honolulu Advertiser, Star Bulletin, Scout.Com, Rivals.Com, SportsBow, and TomboAhi.

Finally thanks to photographers from the Honolulu Advertiser, Star Bulletin, IslandSportsMedia, Irse, Scott, Ubercow, and many others who have taken time to photograph our Warriors.

If anyone knows of any other family ties with a current player and a former Hawaii Player, please add on

If anything is not correct, requested to be removed, or have something to be added (pictures, facts, stats), please email me at BigWave96744@hotmail.com

Aloha and GO WARRIORS!!!

THE OFFICIAL SH THREAD of ALL Possible Conference Expansions

Talks about conference expansions have been wide spread on TV and the radio, share with us your opinion by joining the Sports Hawaii discussion on the topic.

Join the discussion here:  THE OFFICIAL Sports Hawaii THREAD of ALL Possible Conference Expansions

The Kauai Football camp has been canceled

The Kauai Football camp has been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances.  Sorry about the confusion, the camp will most likely be diverted to Oahu.  Announcements about the camp will come out in July.  Thank you all for your understanding.