Hawaii Football: Rainbow Warriors hope to take next steps in year two under Todd Graham

Secondary leads the way for the Warriors defense in 2021

Most football fans might not know this, but Hawaii football had a really good secondary last season and forced turnovers at a pretty good rate. The one area where the Warriors struggled was stopping the run, where they were one of the worst run-stopping teams in the country. That is where Hawaii has focused its efforts this offseason.

Hawaii is returning all three of their starting defensive linemen for 2021 and added in some transfers that it hopes can make a big impact.

Justus Tavai, Blessman Ta’ala, and DJuan Matthews are all back and they all must improve if Hawaii wants to be better at stopping the run this season. Look out for Oklahoma transfer Zacchaeus McKinney and Pitt transfer Pita Tonga to at least add some depth, if not play a good bit. Junior College transfer O’Tay Baker is another guy that should factor into the rotation.

At linebacker, there is also a good mixture of returning starters and transfers coming in. Darius Mausau is the leading playmaker for the Warriors and was fifth nationally, with 11.6 tackles per game, and also had 4.5 sacks. Quentin Frazier and Penei Pavihi are going to be the other projected starters at linebacker and Baylor transfer Solomon Turner is going to be vying for playing time as well.

The secondary was the bright spot for Hawaii’s defense last season and should be again this season. Eugene Ford was hurt for most of 2020, but is back and should be at one of the safety spots.

Cortez Davis and Cameron Lockridge will be at corner and Kai Kaneshiro will be at the other safety. Khoury Bethley played all over the secondary last season, but should start at nickel.