HONOLULU – University of Hawai`i Warrior football head coach Greg McMackin conducted his weekly press conference Monday, recapping the team's bowl-clinching win over Idaho and looking ahead to this week's showdown against Boise State.

 

Number one it feels great for our team to represent Hawai'i in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl. The players are really excited about that and (so are) the coaches.

 

Our primary goal (was) to win seven games, and I've told this team since the spring that they have the chance to be a special team, and I still believe that. We reached one of our goals which was very important because we missed it by one game last year. We didn't want to do that again, we were really focusing on that, (and) we got it early.

 

He's got such a gift at going to the football that you can't teach. He watches the eyes of the quarterback, goes to the ball like he's a receiver, doesn't get caught up looking at receivers, he's just got a great talent. Plus, he's really improved his being physical, he's our second leading tackler, behind Corey (Paredes). He's really smart, he's a 4.0 student, he's up studying video and working hard to make his game better, so I'm really proud of him.

 

He means so much to this team, because he plays a little hurt every week (and) sucks it up. He's a student of the game, he's so much better strength-wise this year and he knows the offense. (Offensive coordinator) Nick Rolovich has done a great job with him as far as teaching him the game. He's up there watching video all the time. And he makes us go because in certain situations where it could be a sack he gets out of it.

 

We have 26 (takeaways)…and I think we're 7^th in the country (in turnover margin). We've really worked hard on that. Our quarterback's not throwing a ton of interceptions for the amount of times he throws the ball, and we're not fumbling the football. That's really been from the Charleston Southern game on that we really started to get that right and that's something that we do really well.

 

This is a real serious week. We're real excited about this. We got three league games left and we're going to take it just like we have been. Just take it one game at a time, this is the next game. I think we're peaking right now. I think it's a good time for us. I know they've had some time off, and I like playing teams that have byes so I think it's the right time.