Warrior Beat: Quick addition
The Warriors addressed their need for speed in the secondary with the commitment from Cortez Davis of Itawamba Community College.
Here’s the skinny:
> Checks the box: In a late-season switch-a-roo, Eugene Ford went to nickelback and Manu Hudson-Rasmussen moved to corner. Hudson-Rasmussen’s final UH game will be the SoFi Hawaii Bowl. The opposite corner, Rojesterman Farris II, will be a senior in 2019. Davis gives a boost to the position that also includes Zach Wilson, Kai Kaneshiro and Akil Francisco.
> Built for speed: As a Flowery Branch High senior in 2016, Davis ran 100 meters in 10.69 seconds and 200 meters in 22.40 seconds at the Hall County Championships in Georgia. He also has been laser-timed at 4.43 seconds over 40 yards.
> Experienced: Davis was at Tennessee Chattanooga for two years, redshirting in 2016 and playing in 10 games in 2017. He spent the past season at Itawamba, where he was named to the All-Mississippi JC first team. His 50 solo tackles were 32nd among NJCAA players.
> See ya soon: Davis, who will sign on Dec. 18, will enroll at UH in January. He will participate in the offseason conditioning program and spring training. After that, he will have two years to play two seasons.
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Each practice, punters Stan Gaudion and Ben Scruton go through what appears to be a William Tell drill. With special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial a few yards in front, Gaudion and Scruton will launch punts. Ghobrial never flinches.
1st?
Glad we addressed the lack of speed in the backfield with Davis. Still need one more speedy corner. Farris can’t be doing it all himself.
Joey Nuuanu-Kuhiiki has a huge assignment on December 22. Get him ready Coach Weber.
Keep the great news coming ST;
Go Warriors!
The word “speed” excites me.
Prevent those one-play drives.
You use the bathroom and when you return, the score changes.
OR
You step out of the house to buy organic kale at Safeway, so you set the DVR, and when you return with the organic kale, you hit the thirty-second fast-forward, the score changes.
yes, speed is needed but the problem is with coaching. the dbs are always confused about the coverage, man of the opponents receivers are wide open. this has been going on for several years.
It still starts with the DL. No DB can cover forever if there is no pressure on the opposing QB.
DBs get exposed when there is no pass rush. Most of issues is our lack of pass rush outside of Padello.
Pass rush is the issue!!
I’m with Aiea 7. Coverage schemes are the bigger problem. Hawaii simply has difficulty executing a zone coverage. Opposing QB simply find the seam because our DBs are too slow in reading the QB; too slow to react, often allowing the receiver to create space. With speed, perhaps Hawaii will rely more on man defense.
9. More complicated than that. Pass rush was a big improvement this past year. Bigger issue was run defense on 1st and 2nd downs followed by not enough speed in the secondary forcing Batoon to play more zone to avoid giving up the big play in passing game. We couldn’t set the edge defensively which is why were targeting bigger and faster DEs like Mason Vega. Also need more size and speed at LB spot which is why Quinn Perry is a important Dec Grad target. Hawaii got killed in the screen game and on crossing routes because our zone coverage was very soft.
Cortez is a big time get with more speed than any DB since Ryan Mouton. Now we need to land Perry and Vega next week so we can implement the speed to our defense. I still expect us to land another corner and safety by spring. This is a much better start to our recruiting class than previous DCs. Prior staff recruited bigger DBs without speed and LBs that were 2 down guys.
Hard to blame pass rush on a play action where your DBs get burned this bad. Gotta factor in that were not very good at stopping the run either so play action is going to work.
http://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/25369400
Would be nice to pair Perry with Bowers. Both fluid, instinctive, downhill MLB’s. So alike. Perry bigger. Bowers quicker. They both find the gap and “shoot” to it with the correct angle. Awesome. And Vega looks like a thicker version of Alama-Francis. High motor 3-4 DE. Good power/quickness combo technique as run stopper. Relentless vs the run. I hope UH can land them. Would be so unbelievable.
13. Bowers is not quick. Probably the 1 recruit coaches might be 2nd guessing. Chandler played Centennial on national TV and didn’t see him make 1 play. Not impactful at all. Bowers is very stiff.. That’s one recruit you won’t have to worry about poachers.
Perry on the other hand is big, can run sideline to sideline and great tackler with his rugby background.
I don’t know which position Ritner will end up playing but his hudl video was ridiculous. Man vs boys. So much bigger than most of his opponents. Or if he lined up against bigger guys he was so much quicker. Relentless too. I seen him line up at bandit against Utah St in “garbage” time and he looked so skinny. He fought off a triple team as the 1 technique in the hudl video. I cant imagine him at D line right now (so skinny). He did play in 2 point stance (hudl) but I don’t know if he can tackle as good when in space as LB. His development is crucial. A building block for sure in the near future. But man he got to eat more. He will disrupt from the edge.
Jeezy33
I’m sorry to hear about that. His hudl (last season) was so nice. Fluid, quick (to decipher) and downhill. Different than what we saw from this seasons LB play (it did improve after bye week). Hopefully it was just a bad game. I know hudl shows you only the good plays an individual makes. I’m not as worried I think. But if you have some concerns that probably means everyone on the “Warrior Beat” will worry about him. I hope he is a competitor is all I’m worried about. If he is the rest can work itself out. Hopefully he can make some impact in the end. Hopefully.
Jeezy
Do you think they should make so many early offers (like they did this summer) as they did? It did seem kind of odd to me (at the time) considering they had so few seniors and also considering the type of talent (Byrd and Ward) they got late in the last recruiting season. If guys like that are available you might not have the scholarship to offer. Just wondering what your thought on this is.
17. I think early offers are fine. I might wait a little longer to accept commitments unless you’re completely sure this is a must get type of guy. Most of those early offers expire anyway.
The thing about Bowers is you don’t see other teams putting pressure trying to poach him away. So I got the feeling what I saw on him is the same most coaches see. Like teams have been trying to recruit Tiger Peterson still but he’s solid Hawaii commit. Teams aren’t even trying to recruit The Texas QB or Bowers.
I need to get a video game system and buy the latest version of Madden.
Need big donors to help Foots. The heck with that guy that sails his yacht to and from Oahu. Tell em to stay on the island. Maybe the Gov can funnel some dough from the rail project to Foots- Heh Heh! Or Maybe create an investor fund requirement designated specifically for University of Hawaii Athletics from all the foreign money coming into the state (don’t know if that $23.5 mil condo was foreign money but you get the drift) rather than a tax that was shot down. Again, training table, facilities, stipends, charter flights, etc. then we might be able to get a few big time 4-5 star players
I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss a kid just because you saw a vid of him having a bad game. Hawaii wanted him even though his only offers was from the military academies and other smaller program.
The coaches must have seen something they liked. Maybe a year or two if coaching, he will get the last laugh.
Maybe nobody is trying to pouch him because he made it clear he wants to be here.
He was rated 3 stars and some of the academies wanted him. That is better than some of the other prospects we went after.
Bowers got offered from ORegon State and Syracuse too.
The guy can’t be as bad as you make him out to be. That fact that nobody is trying to pouch him… according to you….means nothing. The kid might have gotten a few private phone calls from other coaches inquiring about his availability. How do you know he haven’t been turning down other teams?
https://247sports.com/Recruitment/Zach-Bowers-110327/RecruitInterests/
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