Rainbow Warriors football hopes to rebound against Western Kentucky

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - It’s a new week for the Rainbow Warriors football team with a chance at redemption with a new opponent as Western Kentucky comes to the islands for the first time in program history.

Week zero is all but a distant memory for the Braddahhood as they are set to take on the Hilltoppers this weekend and leading up to the first time showdown, the emphasis of practice was learn and grow.

“Regardless, whether you’re coming off of a huge win or a bad loss you kind of want to get rid of that Sunday or Monday, early Monday really.” UH football Joey Yellen told reporters. “Really work towards the next week, there’s nothing you can do about it now and so I thought we did a really good job of that and we’re pretty focused on WKU now.”

WKU is coming off of a 38-27 rout of Austin Peay with the Governors looking promising at times, amassing 319 total yards against the Toppers, so for the ‘Bows, their offense needs to capitalize and move the ball down the field.

“The cat mouse game, it has to be played, right.” Head coach Timmy Chang said. “You have to be able to stretch the field to get underneath and when you are able to stretch the field, it’ll give way underneath and so that’s what has to happen.”

On defense, UH was met with a punishing Vandy run game, but this week, they face a pass happy WKU offense, a big test for the young Hawaii secondary.

“They like to throw, so for us, honing in on the pass game.” Defensive back virdel Edwards II said. “So that’s pretty much the goal for us, they like to throw it vertical, so we have to stay on top and we have to finish — interceptions and turnovers.”

No matter what happens this weekend, the players know the importance of sticking to the game plan and sticking together.

Kick off on Saturday is set for 6:00 p.m. Hawaii time.

The game is available on Spectrum pay-per-view.

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