Hawaii Football: 5 reasons Hawaii will beat Arizona in Week 0

5. Hawaii has an improving, more-experienced defense

Let’s face it, Hawaii was downright abysmal on defense last year. The 2018 edition of the Rainbow Warriors struggled to get much push at the line of scrimmage. They failed to generate many turnovers either through interceptions or fumbles. They were ultimately gashed for more than five touchdowns per game, putting even more pressure on the offense to perform.

But last year Hawaii lost more than half of their starters on that side of the ball. Rolovich and his staff returned a fair amount of the productivity from 2017 to that team, though, and another year of experience has the potential to allow the Rainbow Warriors to improve significantly when they don’t have the football.

In addition to boasting 10 seniors on the defensive two-deep, the Rainbow Warriors also have seven juniors or redshirt juniors to bolster the ranks of the upperclassmen in the unit. As a result, Hawaii will employ one of the 10 most experienced defenses in terms of returning production in the entire FBS.

Given that they ranked outside the top 100 in most statistical categories last season, Hawaii really has nowhere to go but up in 2019 defensively. Arizona cannot assume that they will be able to easily plow through the levels and rack up the points, lest they find themselves quickly in a hole.