If a Colt plays QB on Oahu, does it make any noise?

So there sits one Colt Brennan -- arguably the hottest college QB prospect in the land (Those in Louisville may disagree) -- a respectable 6th place finish in last year's Heisman trophy race. A life redeemed. And not one casual college football fan outside of the states of Hawaii and Colorado could tell you who he is. Why?

As "Terminator II" taught us: This is no fate but what we make.

Right or wrong, Brennan and the UH Rainbow Warriors will toil in relative anonymity for most of the season -- a late season matchup with Boise State aside. That is the price they pay for being geographically undesirable (Only college football could make the islands of Hawaii geographically undesirable! In the NFL, it's a reward. Of course, it's a mandatory curfew for Oahu residents when the NFL makes their annual trip there. Any person caught on the streets after 9 p.m. is liable to get shot... by NFL players! But I digress...). Of course, Brennan had a prime spot lined up in football-mad Big XII Country with the Buffs at one point, and what he made of his fate there took him to a tropical paradise where UH Warrior football is important -- to the entire population of Hawaii and not anywhere else.

So what do you do if your Brennan? Zip off TD passes in record numbers against defenses like, well, Boise State. Now I'm not here to argue that Boise State had the greatest defense since the Fearsome Foursome. But whatever they had was good enough to win the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma (And, oh by the way, the Broncos figure to be even better this year). Brennan and the Warriors -- never ones to be shrinking violets -- also took on Oregon State and ASU (Schools that make LSU fans a little nervous) last year. So maybe that onslaught that Brennan put up last year should be looked at with more than just a passing, "Yeah, but that's just the WAC." The degrees of separation between doing it against San Jose State and doing it against Ohio State on any given day are, perhaps, not as wide a gulf as it appears.

And for Brennan's encore this season? Ya gotta run the table, bud. Anything so much as a stumble and east coast fans, east coast pollsters, and east coast Heisman voters will turn off whatever TV coverage they have of you and stop looking for you in the Monday papers (Hawaii is at such a disadvantage papers back in the Original 13 don't even carry so much as a box score of them until Monday, if they do at all). It's too bad, because the talent is there. Matt Leinart had a bad game and it was, "Well, you can't expect that guy to take down the Auburn's of the world single-handedly every game, every week". Brennan doesn't have that luxury. If not...

Hasta la vista, baby.

The Substitute