After a few extra days off for rest and recovery, the University of Hawai‘i football team returned to the practice field Thursday morning ahead of the second of its three idle weekends this season.
The Rainbow Warriors moved to 6–2 overall and clinched bowl eligibility with a 31–19 road win at Colorado State last weekend. Hawai‘i sits in third place in the Mountain West at 3–1 and is using the bye week to prepare for next Saturday’s game at San Jose State.
Team captains say the off week arrives at the right time, not only physically, but academically and mentally.
“Especially in the phase that we have now, two games, bye week, two games, bye week, it helps us a lot,” captain Zhen Sotelo said. “It helps us get our bodies back and it helps us stay on top of school as well. In this time of the season we get so bought up as just being athletes and lose the personal side of it. These bye weeks bring us closer together as brothers and that’s what we need.”
Fellow captain Peter Manuma emphasized that while the team is in a strong position, the standard remains high.
“Our biggest thing right now is it’s not good enough,” Manuma said. “So we just focus on the things that we can get better at, letting everybody know that what we did is not good enough and where we’re at is not good enough. Just keeping everybody’s mental on the same level as ours.”
Sotelo added that leadership across the roster is crucial in this stretch.
“We’re in a great place right now where we can either keep going on that rise or shoot ourselves in the foot and go downhill,” he said. “Leadership plays a big role in both weeks because you’ve got to keep the mission mindset. It’s not just me and Peter, guys like Elijah Palmer, Ethan Spencer, Landon Sims — we all do a great job collectively at keeping the mindset in tune with our goals.”
Hawai‘i returns to action next Saturday at San Jose State.
Head coach Timmy Chang will appear on a special edition of Hawai‘i Football Final Sunday at 7 p.m. on the KHON+ app.