Five players to watch as Hawai’i faces off with Washington State

HONOLULU – Second half adjustments. 

After the opening six games of the 2024 season returned a 2-4 record to the Rainbow Warriors, the final six games present a massive challenge to make good on preseason bowl game hopes. Hawai’i will head to Pullman for the first time ever this weekend, getting ready to spar with Washington State (5-1) on homecoming night for the Cougars. 

UH is coming off a tough 28-7 loss at home against nationally-ranked Boise State, a common opponent for the Rainbow Warriors and Cougars. The Broncos thrashed Washington State, 45-24, in Week 5 as Ashton Jeanty rushed for 259 yards and four touchdowns while Hawai’i held BSU to a season-low in points while still allowing over 200 yards on the ground to Jeanty. 

With six games left and five more wins needed to clinch an appearance in a bowl game for Hawai’i, here are five players to watch this weekend in Pullman for the Rainbow Warriors: 

WR Tama Uiliata 

One of the quiet stars behind the scenes, Tama Uiliata began the year buried deep on the depth chart as a freshman. A Waipahu graduate, the 5-foot-11 receiver greyshirted after his 2023 graduation and enrolled at UH during the 2024 spring semester to begin working within the system. 

As reported by HSRN’s Michael Lasquero, Uiliata worked his way into the receiver rotation during practices for the Rainbow Warriors recently and made it onto the San Diego State game travel roster. While he did not play in Week 6 against the Aztecs, the freshman did make his collegiate debut last weekend against No. 17 Boise State with four snaps and no receptions. 

That may change this week with a potentially depleted WR group against Washington State as the statuses of starters Pofele Ashlock and Dekel Crowdus remain up in the air. Ashlock left UH’s Week 7 game against BSU after taking a brutal hit that placed him in concussion protocol while Crowdus missed the game against the Broncos entirely. 

It remains to be seen what happens with Ashlock’s status after Hawai’i head coach Timmy Chang told reporters earlier in the week that his star sophomore receiver is expected to travel to Pullman with the team. If Ashlock misses the first game of his career, look for Uiliata to receive a few snaps in the slot in his place after forcing his way onto the field with his work behind the scenes. 

RB Landon Sims 

The guy doing a thankless job, Sims has played the 9th-most snaps of all Hawai’i offensive players (262), trailing the offensive line, Brayden Schager and his top two targets in Pofele Ashlock and Nick Cenacle. The running back has spent 166 of those snaps in pass blocking while only receiving 48 total touches (39 rush, 9 rec) in his time on the field for the Rainbow Warriors. 

Those 39 rushing attempts have gone for 160 yards, an average of 4.1 yards per carry, while his nine catches added another 122 yards (though 52 of those came on a single play against Boise State). Simply put, he is the most steady and productive of the stable of running backs that Hawai’i currently employs. 

The 166 pass blocking snaps are not by accident, nor is the fact he has more than five times as many blocking reps as the next closest back (Cam Barfield, 31). Sims has been a quality extra blocker in the backfield for the past year and a half, grading out with an 83.2 PFF grade (132 snaps) in pass blocking in 2023 while posting a 65.5 grade this year across six games. 

Sims had his worst game of the year in pass blocking last week against an impressive Boise State pass rush that consistently sent blitzes for the Hawai’i offense to try to withstand, posting a career-worst 30.7 grade. The junior took the performance hard, telling media earlier this week that he expects to clean up rushers that get past the offensive line and he puts it on himself when Schager is constantly battered by opposing defenses. 

Experiencing a slight homecoming of his own (Sims is from Washington), look for the big bruiser to bounce back against a weaker pass rush from the Cougars that has mustered only seven sacks in six games. He also needs to chip in offensively as the Rainbow Warriors try to keep pace with the country’s 19th-best offense (39.0 ppg) and provide a better complement to the defense than last weekend. 

WR Alex Perry 

Like Uiliata, Perry could get extra burn this weekend if Crowdus and Ashlock miss the contest against Washington State. The sophomore enjoyed his best outing of the season by far against Boise State with six catches for 57 yards on nine targets while helping fill the absence after Ashlock’s injury. 

Perry has made some phenomenal catches in his time with the Rainbow Warriors, showing off great spatial awareness with the sideline while using every bit of his 6-foot-5 frame for an impressive catch radius. It appears him and Schager had developed some chemistry together over the past couple of years and he has been a solid option that Schager looks to when trying to move the chains. 

A former standout basketball player from Florida, Perry provides a bigger body with more vertical ability than the average receiver. Hawai’i likes to give him contested catch chances in his limited snaps, hauling in six of his 14 career contested catch targets (42.9%). 

He has yet to haul in a touchdown in 2024 after pulling down three scores last year, but going against a Washington State defense that allows nearly 30 points per game and 280 yards through the air could help the lanky sophomore into the TD column while propelling the Rainbow Warriors closer to a road upset. If Ashlock and Crowdus are still out or not at 100 percent, Perry should get a good portion of the target share once again. 

DL Ezra Evaimalo 

One of the captains of the defense and program as a whole, Evaimalo is one of the best run stoppers for Hawai’i and presents major issues to opponents in the passing game too with heavy hands that help him win rep after rep. The senior should be well rested for this week after he was ejected in the first quarter against Boise State for a targeting call, leaving UH without one of the leaders of the defense. 

He returns this week for another road test for the Rainbow Warriors, facing a Washington State offense that averages 462 yards each time out. He will have his hands full going against an elite Washington State pass-blocking unit that has allowed only five sacks and six QB hits all season long (via PFF). 

Evaimalo has racked up 1.5 sacks this year, tied for the 3rd-most among Rainbow Warrior defenders after leading UH with 3.5 sacks last season. His stability in the middle of the trenches for Hawai’i has been important for a unit that ranks among the top 30 units in the country. 

Hawai’i will need a similar performance from the overall defense as last week when Ashton Jeanty felt human for three quarters and Boise State scored a season-low 28 points. Chances of repeating a performance like that should rise with the return of Evaimalo and will need to happen for the Rainbow Warriors to escape Pullman with a victory. 

DL Elijah Robinson 

In his second season with the program, Elijah Robinson has emerged as a steady, productive force on the defensive line for Timmy Chang and staff. The East Carolina transfer did not play against Vanderbilt or Stanford to start his Hawai’i tenure but forced his way on the field by the third game of the year to become one of the Rainbow Warriors’ most dangerous pass rushers by season’s end. 

That production has only continued into this year, improving even more under new defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman to cement himself as one of the best players on the field each week. Through six games, Robinson has a team-high 6.0 TFLs and 20 solo tackles while adding 1.5 sacks and a forced fumble. 

Robinson has been on a heater of a different degree over the past two weeks, tallying 16 tackles (4.0 TFLs) and a sack. That’s good for Hawai’i, who saw starters along the back of the defense drop like flies against Boise State and have statuses that remain in the air going into the weekend. 

If Peter Manuma and Caleb “C-Bo” Brown are unable to return against Washington State, it will be back to the next-man-up approach for the defensive backfield. Luckily, Hawai’i still has the services of Cam Stone and Elijah Palmer ready with players like Deliyon Freeman and Jaheim Wilson-Jones prepared to fill in where needed. 

One way to help compensate for the absences in the back? 

Win up front in the trenches, where Robinson will look to produce and dominate for the third week in a row.