Outlook: How much has Brennan recovered from a sprained right ankle? While visiting yesterday, his mother, Betsy, said she had forgotten he was injured. Brennan's mobility is vital to the Warriors' four-wide offense. Brennan not only has been effective on deep passes this season, he also has resurrected the magic of the shovel pass with Pilares. When Brennan is the quarterback, Pilares is averaging 11.6 post-catch yards on shovel passes. During the offseason, Pilares said he watched cut-up videos of Brennan shoveling passes to Nate Ilaoa, last year's running back.
"Colt and Nate were doing some crazy stuff," Pilares said. "I tried to learn from that. When I take my steps, I know Colt's going to get me the ball."
Like a baseball pitcher who uses the same motion to throw different pitches, Pilares has learned that the best way to sell the shovel pass ? or any draw play, for that matter ? is to make the defense believe he is a backfield blocker on every play. "(Running back) coach (Wes) Suan pushes us to make it consistent," Pilares said.
Last week, Rivers, who had missed the previous six quarters because of lower-back tightness, had his best game of the season, catching seven of the nine passes thrown in his direction. He did not make any mistakes in his routes. Rivers leads the UH receivers with a yards-after-catch (YAC) average of 6.66.
Hawthorne has emerged a sure-handed receiver (he had five catches for first downs last week), but his YAC is a team-low 2.13. Still, he has become a physical blocker. Aligned as a tackle in an odd formation last week, Hawthorne made a pancake block. "I'm an OK blocker," Hawthorne said. "I'm not as good as Jason or Davone."
