2021 G5 Preview: Was Hawaii's Step Back Predictive, Or A Fluke?
ICYMI: This is a part of The Outside Zone’s full 2021 G5 preview series, which last looked at Rice. You can find a master list for all of the previews here.
This preview is going to be a little bit different, not for a lack of things to say about Hawaii but because this program just has… a lot of moving pieces right now, and if I’m being honest, I don’t think that head coach Todd Graham’s first season in charge really told us much of anything about what he wants to be this team to be. I’m not entirely sure that he knows yet.
There is returning talent here - 21 starters to be exact - but I just don’t know that there’s a ton of insight that can be provided about this group right now. Last year was Graham’s first, after he had to replace Nick Rolovich, who left almost completely out of the blue for Washington State. Two of his top first year assistants, wide receivers coach Brennan Marion and offensive coordinator G.J. Kinne, both departed for better jobs this offseason. Hawaii had one of the weirdest seasons in a year full of weird seasons and frankly, it’s both difficult and unfair to try to glean too much from its nine games in 2020. Oh, and they spent essentially their entire spring practice in hell.
“The University of Hawaii football team returned to spring training camp practice on (April 14) after 81 football players finished their quarantine following eight players testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this month. “
We do know a few things though.
Graham is as he’s always been, which is part of what makes this a tricky exercise. He’s a very talented tactician, specifically on defense, and he has an eye for talent on the trail and in his coaching hires. He’s committed to a distinct and aggressive defensive ideology that I like a lot and think works well with the talent here.
For those of you not familiar, Graham really likes to vary his defensive fronts to fuck with offenses, but the defining trait is the blitzing. Graham rarely brings more than five or six rushers, but he also rarely brings just three or four. He wants to get into the quarterback’s face from unexpected directions and he’s very good at it.
Hawaii deployed a 3-3-5 primarily but did flip around as I mentioned, and it worked pretty well - against the pass. The secondary is solid and returns just about everyone, and Graham isn’t going to stop blitzing, so the pass defense should be good again, at least in theory.
That 3-3-5, however, did not hold up especially well on the ground. Hawaii’s line was not good in 2020 and most offenses didn’t even really try to pass against this defense because of it, it was just so easy to eat out yards on the ground.
Though the defense has an identity, the offense really doesn’t. Graham has always been a bit of chameleon, adjusting the personnel that he has, which is a positive, but it does have its drawbacks, as does Graham in general. He struggles at times to build an actual program identity, which ultimately caught up to him at Arizona State. Blitzing a lot does not an identity make, no matter how much he wants it to. The 2020 Hawaii offense looked a whole lot like Rolovich’s, partially because that’s what Hawaii had in the personnel department, but it could also have something to do with Graham not really knowing what he wants on offense. I think that Marion may have been the OC of the future - he runs a unique and creative system, which Graham usually likes - but he’s off to Pittsburgh.
When I mention the drawbacks, I’m talking very specifically about the fact that Graham seems to value setting up his buddies more than he does winning at times. Case in point: Kinne’s replacement is Bo Graham. You’ll be shocked to learn that Bo is Todd’s son. Is he guaranteed to flop? Absolutely not. But I’d be lying if I said I was encouraged by the elder Graham’s reaction to his staff departures this offseason.
All that said, I like Graham. I think he’s a good coach and he doesn’t have a whole lot of interest in running the same stuff as everyone else, which is refreshing. Hawaii’s offense wasn’t especially coherent last season, but at least it wasn’t just running exclusively RPOs. It played pretty closely to the Rolovich “all short passes” formula, sprinkling in some more running and the occasional deep shot for sophomore quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, who really came into his own last season.
Cordeiro is going to be key for a lot of what Hawaii is doing this season, obviously. He was one of two offensive players on this team capable of making things happen consistently along with do-it-all skill guy Calvin Turner Jr. Both players are back and will be the staples of this offense once again. The receiver room outside of Turner is a bit depleted, but I’m really not that worried about it, because Turner was the only real guy worth trusting last season anyone, so any improvement on that this season (perhaps in the form of development for halfback Dae Dae Hunter) would be a plus.
Jared Smart is probably the best hope for another offensive weapon, though the senior receiver was basically just a screens and short routes machine last year. Hawaii needs to find someone that can at least pretend to take the top off the defense.
Obviously, that requires quarterback play too, and I’ll admit that Cordeiro’s throwing motion is… rough. He’s capable of getting the ball down the field, generally, but he’s not throwing it 60 yards and I think it’s always going to look like he hurt himself in the middle of his windup and just powered through it.
The running game isn’t likely to ever be a huge part of this program for whatever reason, but I do think that Hawaii could be okay at it this season. Cordeiro is a great runner, and both Turner and Hunter are comfortable working in the read option game. It’s a bit of a throwback, but Cordeiro is really good at it. The line should be one of the best in the Mountain West, too. I don’t expect a top 50 offense here, but it can’t be as challenging to watch as it was at times last season again. Hawaii needs to get the ball down the field much quicker this year.
I have marginally higher hopes for the defense, though how it fares against the run will likely hold it back, because I don’t think it’s getting much better up front, unless a couple of power five transfers really hit.
I do love this linebacker room, led by Darius Muasau, who managed 102 tackles in nine games last season. He’s an absolute menace and will be the best player on this defense and one of the best defenders in the conference.
He’s joined by a number of strong contributors, none that I’m more interested in than Penei Pavihi, seen here committing a crime. Baylor transfer Solomon Turner and Stanford transfer Caleb Griffin are here too.
The secondary, as mentioned, will be fine. A Graham secondary is in great shape if it’s fine, because if everything goes according to plan, it really isn’t going to have to do that much. Hawaii needs to get better and keeping receivers in front of it, but I think that, along with a lot of fundamental issues that this defense had, can be attributed to 2020 at large.
Now, even with a fairly normal season hopefully on deck, I don’t think that this is a full turnaround situation. Hawaii is still without the kind of top end talent needed to compete at the top of the Mountain West, and Graham is a really, really bad recruiter. Good at talent evaluation, but a bad recruiter. He’s a defensive coach, after all. I think that it takes a step forward this year, and that last year was just a blip, but I also think that Rolovich may have set the ceiling here, realized that he set the ceiling, and then departed before going 8-4 or 9-3 every year through his prime coaching days. Graham hasn’t hit that yet, but I think he can probably get there pretty soon.
This is probably a 6-6 or 7-5 year, though. He’s not Rolo yet.