Things won’t get any easier for Hawaii when the Rainbow Warriors play MI at the Big House next weekend in Ann Arbor.
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Both teams were scheduled to hold open practice sessions at the stadium in western Sydney on Thursday, but falls of up 50 to 100 millimeters of rain (two to four inches) late Wednesday and overnight forced organizers to keep the players off the turf.
Well, here are three reasons.
Special teams was an issue for Hawaii the entire first half as they also allowed Cal to return a kickoff to midfield, but luckily that snafu only led to a field goal.
WHY AUSTRALIA?: Officially known as the College Football Sydney Cup, the game was brought to Sydney by tourism officials anxious to again showcase the city and its regional attractions. Football officials hope it’ll help create an interest in the gridiron, but it’s a crowded market. While a growing number of people in the USA are raising a nervous eyebrow or two at the never-any-mystery potential for brain denting that may result from playing American football, Aussies have no problem with rough sports with their love of Rugby and Australian Rules Football (think a hybrid of Rugby, Quidditch, and guys in shorty shorts beating the piss out of each other). Australians love the NFL – at least on television – but whether American football in live action will ever catch on remains to be seen. Last Saturday at the same stadium, traditional rugby rivals Australia and New Zealand attracted a crowd of 65,328.
California Golden Bears’ Chad Hansen holds the trophy presented to his team after defeating the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors in the opening game of the USA college football season at Sydney’s Olympic stadium in Sydney, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016. That game had 73,000 in the stands.
Cal coach Sonny Dykes said it was a good starting point for his team. It capped the season with a win over Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl, its first postseason victory since 2008 and its first bowl appearance since 2011.
Hawaii’s Rainbow Warriors stretch during a training run at a field in Sydney, Australia, Friday, Aug. 26, 2016.
The Rainbow Warriors turned to former Hawaii quarterback Nick Rolovich to get the reeling program back on its feet. “Hawaii threw a few blitzes at us and our offensive line played well”.
“This is a dream come true”, Rolovich said. “We asked the family it if was OK, and they felt it would be a nice tribute”.
Davis Webb, who Dykes has already named in the starting role, is one of the key Cal additions this year, replacing Jared Goff, the No. 1 overall National Football League draft pick by the Los Angeles Rams.
SYDNEY (AP) After three seasons at Texas Tech, quarterback Davis Webb made quite an impression in his first game as a graduate transfer at California.
The teams combined for 31 first-quarter points with senior running back Khalfani Muhammad scoring on a 34-yard run and Webb throwing a 17-yard scoring pass to Hansen for the Golden Bears. “Webb should be a solid replacement for Goff in Dykes’ system”, Parkila said. Webb returns the favor: This “is what a championship culture looks like, and that is what coach Dykes is developing here”. Even with that, the odds of Hawaii pulling off this upset over Cal are slim.
On the flip side, the Rainbow Warriors should be sharper by Week 2 with a very unusual season opener in a different country behind them. Long travel for Hawaii is expected even in scheduled league games and going to Sydney is an exciting experience but then going to MI and Arizona in consecutive weeks will take a toll on this team, and possibly the fan base as it is expected the Warriors will not win any of those games. Hawaii also has Sydney-born Max Hendrie, a defensive end.
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Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
