Columnist Dean Juipe: Crisis time as 0-2 Rebels face Hawaii

Dean Juipe

Friday, Sept. 19, 1997 | 9:15 a.m.

IT'S A GAME that looked easier on paper six months ago than it does today.

Back then Hawaii's immediate football prospects appeared dim. The Rainbow Warriors were coming off a two-win season, had lost 10 starters and had little reason for any overt optimism.

Jeff Horton saw them on UNLV's schedule and mentally chalked it up as a win.

Now he realizes this is a game that could go either way. Actually, he realized it three weeks ago after hearing a final score from the island: Hawaii 17, Minnesota 3.

"Initially I was shocked," he said Thursday. "Later, after I got the details, I was very impressed. Hawaii played well that game and they played well in the next one too."

The Rainbows went to 2-0 with a 34-21 win over Cal State Northridge before running into another better-than-expected team, Wyoming, and losing last week's game 35-6.

That brings them to Las Vegas for a Saturday rendezvous with a UNLV team that Horton is trying to keep from unraveling. This is a critical week for the 0-2 Rebels, coming off a disheartening one-point loss at Air Force and feeling as if it's must-win time if they're to meet or exceed Horton's preseason prediction of five 1997 wins.

"It's crucial, no doubt about it," Horton said. "We've got to line up and play a solid 60 minutes -- not 59."

The 59-minute approach cost the Rebels at Air Force as the Falcons used a late 80-yard drive to win by a point after UNLV had led by 14 earlier. An emotionally spent Horton choked on that bitter pill afterward, the oh-so-close setback perhaps tougher to take than the 22-point blowout that the bookies were predicting.

And no sooner had that headache been Bayered into the recesses of his mind when Horton was confronted with just enough internal turmoil to ruin the new week. A prized recruit, running back Rodrick Johnson, went public and expressed his dissatisfaction on a number of topics, all of which left Horton at least moderately outraged and immersed in damage control.

There's no prejudging how two early-season losses topped by Johnson's surprisingly negative outburst will affect the Rebels Saturday. A mentally tough team would push the setbacks aside and concentrate on a game that's there to be won, yet there's no assurance UNLV is that team.

The Rebels have, after all, lost 22 of their last 25 games.

If they're to win five of their next nine and meet Horton's goal it will take a virtual plethora of 60-minute efforts, to say nothing of a windfall of good luck. That's an elusive one-two punch but one UNLV must land this week or risk seeing its season slip slide away.

All of this would be easier if Hawaii was the dog-eared team it was sized up to be last summer.

"They're looking pretty good to me," Horton surmised. "They're very aggressive and they put a lot of pressure on you."

That pressure will mushroom if the Rebels get behind and will envelop the team if it falls to 0-3, notwithstanding a lightweight like Illinois State being on the schedule next week.

Surf's up, boys.