Aloha means Hello | by Jay

Tombo at UHFootball does a thorough job of keeping up with all the news surrounding Warriors football; his blog is a great resource for keeping tabs on everything leading up the Hawaii Bowl this week.

Case in point: this morning Tombo linked a short Ferd Lewis column from the Honolulu Advertiser, recalling Gerry Faust's 1984 Aloha Bowl appearance. Pretty interesting set of comparisons.

To that point Faust had gone 25-19-1 at Notre Dame and had drawn heavy flak for it.

He needed a win to close the '84 season, something to help project a robust '85 and beyond.

Sound familiar?

Weis is 28-21 (.571), percentage-wise very similar to Faust's record (.568) at the same four-year point. Though it could be argued Faust played the tougher schedules.

And for a while in the fourth quarter of that bowl game a generation ago it looked like the Irish, with Allen Pinkett and Mike Golic, would get the win in classic Irish comeback fashion for Faust, right up until the time quarterback Steve Beuerlein's last-gasp pass came up short in the end zone in a 27-20 loss.

Then, the questions about Faust's tenure heightened, percolating into 1985, which would become the gentlemanly coach's last season in South Bend...