Hawaii Football: Warriors 5 Days Away from Hunting Buffaloes

Honolulu, HI—When the Hawaii football team runs onto Aloha Stadium's turf this Saturday (4:15pm HST) for its season-opener behind quarterback Bryant Moniz and the Hawaiian flag, it will have been exactly 253 days since their season-ending loss to Tulsa at the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl.

A 62-35 Golden-Hurricane blowout was not the way Hawaii planned to finish 2010, now, after eight-plus months stewing with a "bitter taste" in their mouth, the Warriors are ready to start 2011 by hunting Buffaloes. Colorado Buffaloes.

The biggest issue confronting Hawaii on its quest to defend their WAC championship — and avenge their 31-13 loss to Colorado last season — is replacing nine starters on the offensive side of the ball.

Most importantly, all five offensive linemen.

Centering the new offensive line for the Warriors will be Matagisila Lefiti, who doesn't seem the least bit concerned about the prospect of starting five new linemen.

"Everything's looking fine," Lefiti said after practice last week. "Guys are ready, and excited, and just anxious to go play.

"It's been the same every year, we get a bunch of new guys (on the offensive line), they jell, and it works out. So no one's really worried about, well us in particular, we're not worried about going out there and blowing it, because we've been working hard and we're ready to go.

"It's time to get it."

Lefiti, a fifth-year senior from Pavaivai, American Samoa, was expected to start last season at center before an injury kept him out of the first few games. He still appeared in 11 games as a reserve, but besides him the Warriors are exceptionally thin on offensive line experience.

Clayton Laurel, a senior with only six career appearances due to a slew of past injuries, will start at left tackle. Next to him at left guard will be Brett Leonard, a JUCO transfer who started one game as a junior last season and appeared in five.

On the right side, red-shirt freshman Sean Shigematsu will start at tackle and Chauncy Winchester-Makainai, a sophomore with 13 appearances last season on special teams, will start at guard.

One thing the Warriors hope to have in their favor to start the season is the crowd.

"I'm pretty excited about the crowd. Our fans are always loyal, they're always faithful to us with their support and everything, I'm sure it's going to be outrageous," said wide receiver Royce Pollard, who along with Moniz are the only two starters returning on offense.

"We're going to have fans out there really trying to give us that extra boost...and give us that (home-field) advantage."

Slot receiver Jeremiah Ostrowski said the crowd he expects at Aloha Stadium is "going to be crazy. I know Colorado, a lot of Hawaii people go to Colorado and a lot of people from Colorado come to Hawaii too. So the atmosphere is going to be good.

"I got a lot of friends that graduated from there, so personally, for me, it's going to be a fun game to play in, but I'm sure it is for everyone else too."

Lefiti said he "hopes it's exactly how (Pollard and Ostrowski) explained it...our crowd to be there and cheer us on.

But "to be quiet when we're playing on offense so we can execute what we got to do."

Execute Buffaloes, Hawaii hopes.