Even at full strength, the Hawaii defense was going to have a difficult time stopping the Oregon offense.
But it was announced Tuesday that linebacker and leading tackler Logan Taylor was diagnosed with a torn ACL is and will be out for the season.
According to head coach Timmy Chang, his team will just have to adjust and move on.
“I think those guys in that room want to play and are hungry to play. I love that they compete and it stings when they don’t play,” he said of the other linebackers. “If we had guys that were just comfortable being backups and guys that didn’t want to start, we would have a problem.”
Perhaps it’s a good time for the Rainbow Warriors to play some new names on defense because in the first three games, they have been less than impressive.
They are giving up over 30 points a game and two of those opponents, Stanford and Vanderbilt, aren’t exactly scoring juggernauts.
Losing a key cog on the defense is something Hawaii has had to deal with before. Last season, another linebacker, Isaiah Tufaga, missed the last seven games of the year.
“The sad thing about it is that you lose your spiritual, emotional, and team captains on this defense,” Chang said. “But we have some good players in that room and we’ll coach them up.”
Having Tufaga in there will help Hawaii’s cause as he leads the team in tackles for loss and has 17 total tackles. Chang says expects to come to Oregon, compete and win.
“Don’t back down. We’re going up there to play a good football team. We’re excited about the environment, but you don’t back down” he said. “We’ll do what we need to do to go and win this game.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]