Notre Dame vs Hawaii in Hawaii Bowl

2008 Hawaii Bowl

Hawaii vs. Notre Dame

In a bowl game that has a lot of people shaking their heads, this will be kinda interesting. This is a bowl that features two teams that have people asking, “what happened to these football programs?”

One team had huge success only a year ago, and has fallen off big time, the other known for winning, that has fallen off in the last several years. This is one of those bowls that was specifically made for Hawaii, and one that most any team would LOVE to take.

So how do these two teams stand up to one another. In most situations, it would be an easy guess to think that the great and powerful Notre Dame would be able to beat Hawaii…but is that true this year?

From the WAC comes Hawaii, a team that just last year enjoyed the best year EVER!. 12 wins, one loss, and that was in the bowl game. This team made history for the island and in the NCAA as one of a very few and select teams to go undefeated in the regular season. But turmoil came out of paradise when the head coach felt that he was not given enough support in recruiting, and decide that he would be better off somewhere else.

This story shocked the islands as they realized too late that because they never took care of the coach as they should have, and apparently held back on funding while ignoring his pleas for help. So after the best season Hawaii ever had, he decided to go in a new direction, and left for SMU. Personally, I side with the coach, and wish him well.

But in the wake, there was left a football team that was left in ashes, after such a wonderful season. So let’s look at the resumes of these two teams and see who has a chance of winning this bowl game, starting with the 7-6 Hawaii Warriors.

After coming off that historic season of 12-1, the season started rough losing to Florida 56-10. They were able to rebound for a moment, beating Weber State36-17 before the wheels came off the season.

A loss at Oregon State and a conference loss to San Jose State crippled the team only 4 games into the young season. All hopes of any BCS repeats were gone, but most folks knew that was the case from the end of last year.

At 1-3, the Warriors were playing for pride now, and a hope that they can qualify for a bowl. Strange to say even though the WAC conference games were quite young. But things seemed to change when they defeated then ranked #22 Fresno State 32-29 in overtime. Beating this team meant that there was still some shot for the WAC Championship.

Beating Louisiana Tech helped further the cause, but the ride ended when they lost at Boise State by 20. With two losses in the conference, it would be impossible to win the conference title, so they were back to just trying to qualify for a bowl. A close win over Nevada and a loss to Utah State put them in dire straits, needing 6 wins to qualify, but were currently 4-5.

Was it then fortune that Hawaii would play three of the worst teams in the Western US in New Mexico State, Idaho and Washington State? Three wins from those three teams gave the Warriors a 7-4 record and now qualified for a bowl. All that remains was to play Big East Champions Cincinnati, who were currently ranked, to prove that this team didn’t fall off the face of the earth.

But that was not to be, as they lost in a close game, and fell to 7-5.

Hawaii has had a very tough year, and if I am correct, 8 of the teams they have played will be in post season…a very tough season for any team. But of those teams, Hawaii was only able to beat 2 of them. They are 5-2 on the island, and 2-4 away, so the advantage seems to be with them at home on this bowl….

Now for Notre Dame…oh boy….

This is a football team in near complete disarray. Once revered as one of the greatest college football organizations in the history of the sport, we have seen a complete collapse because of lack of commitment to real coaching, and giving in to rich alumni. Whatever the rich people want, they seem to get, even if it completely oversteps the boundaries of what is ethical or competitive.

There seems to be an air of superiority of this team, which is technically in the Big East in everything EXCEPT football, as they seem to like to stay independent. This same mentality seems to be the downfall of this team as they have suffered numerous underachieving seasons under three different head coaches. And yet, they still have not figured out how to get back into the National Title hunt.

Coming in with an embarrassing 6-6 record, this team started out with a win vs. San Diego State and captured their first win of the year 21-13. You’d think the great Notre Dame would win that by a larger margin, but there it was. It was followed by a second win over equally failing Michigan 35-17, which had some to wonder if Notre Dame was really back, or if Michigan was really that bad.

The first true test was against Michigan State, since the first two games was at home, now the Irish had to travel to prove their record, and thus got their first loss 23-7. No matter, there was still time to make the BCS since as an independent they had special privileges should they win 8 or more games…

Adding wins over Purdue and Stanford, both being home games, started to get some people voting Notre Dame in the bottom of the top 25 at 4-1. If they could go and beat currently ranked UNC in Chapel Hill, then surely they must be respected…

But they lost 29-24, and were quickly flushed out of the elite teams of the nation. It seemed at the time that Notre Dame was only beating bad teams at home, and losing to good teams away. That trend had to change if they hoped to get in the BCS, or even qualify for a bowl.

This was easily cured by going to hapless Washington and beating the former coach of Notre Dame, and curing the illness of losing away games. Now at 5-2, the Irish were still looking decent for maybe a BCS bowl.

But now they had their first REAL test at home…playing a ranked foe in Pittsburgh, and it showed the underside of Notre Dame as they lost 36-33 in overtime. A tough match but it still seemed to prove that the schedule of Notre Dame was favored for them, and that they could not win the “big” games. This was further proven when they went away to play ranked Boston College and lost 17-0.

Now at 5-4, Notre Dame needed only one more win to qualify, but also needed to prove to the nation that this was not a team that only won against “cupcakes”. To this point, beating undefeated Washington said nothing, and the home games were against lesser foes. They needed a quality win.

This was partly achieved when they won at Navy 27-21...although they almost choked up that game as well. So now at 6-4, Notre Dame was certainly in a bowl, and now had a chance to go 8-4 and get a top 25 ranking, as well as possibly compete in a BCS bowl.

But they forgot to finish the season, and completely overlooked Syracuse, losing 24-23. Now the critics were out in full force, citing that Notre Dame was clearly not an elite team, and the criticisms caused major talk about the head coach’s job. Some thought the only thing that could salvage this year was to win the last game…over USC.

Yeah, right. They lost 38-3 and were ran out of California on a rail.

Even though half of the teams Notre Dame played will be in a bowl, Notre Dame only beat 1 of them, and the teams they also beat has a total of 14 wins (outside Navy), meaning the teams this team beat had an average of 2 and a half wins…not quite top 25 caliber.

So who has the advantage? Neither team is having a good year, but I think this bowl was a reward to Notre Dame, and a chance to sell the alumni tickets to the islands. Always rewarding the rich I see, but these bowl games are businesses. Can I see Notre Dame losing? Yeah, because they have shown nothing all year. But Hawaii has been equally disappointing. This game might actually be competitive for awhile, but if I had to pick, I might say that Notre Dame has a slight advantage since Hawaii could be in awe of the fading aura that is Notre Dame. But it could work against Notre Dame too, as teams that travel to paradise often forget the job they came to do. Notre Dame by a field goal maybe….