GAME NOTES: The 16th-ranked Hawaii Warriors try to extend their good fortunes and their best start to a season in a quarter century, as they drop in on the San Jose State Spartans in a special Friday night edition of Western Athletic Conference football. Having scored at least 45 points in every game this season, the Warriors are now winners of six in a row thanks to a 52-37 defeat of Utah State last Saturday. The victory also pushed Hawaii to a 3-0 start in WAC play, placing it atop the league standings heading into this week. A program that in previous years had a hard time winning on the mainland, the Warriors have strung together six consecutive road wins to this point. As for the Spartans, a team that went to and captured a bowl victory last season under head coach Dick Tomey, they've rebounded from a rough 0-3 start to 2007 by stringing together three straight wins now. After being shutout by Stanford the third week of the season the Spartans turned the corner with victories over Utah State and UC Davis, adding a 28-20 decision versus Idaho this past weekend at home. Despite Hawaii being such a dominant team the last few seasons, San Jose State actually leads the all-time series with the Warriors by a count of 15-14-1. Last season, Hawaii easily took care of the Spartans in a 54-17 decision in the middle of November.

Hawaii remained undefeated and in the hunt for a BCS invite with its 15-point victory over Utah State but that doesn't seem as important as the status of Heisman hopeful Colt Brennan who left the game early in the second half with a leg/ankle injury. Brennan, who still managed to pass for 219 yards and a touchdown on 19-of-25 attempts, is listed as probable for this game, but if the visitors get out to an early lead you can be sure he will try to find a seat on the bench. Tyler Graunke stepped in for Brennan and hit 9-of-11 passes for 246 yards and three touchdowns, helping to make up for the fact that the team compiled a pitiful 47 yards rushing on 19 attempts. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year or so, you'd know that the Hawaii offense begins and ends with the exploits of Brennan who has already thrown for 1,850 yards and 16 touchdowns despite missing significant time this season. But even when Brennan is not on the field the UH offense still makes Graunke look unbeatable with seven touchdowns in just 71 pass attempts. There are four receivers averaging better than 73 yards per game for the squad, with Ryan Grice-Mullen placing first with his 582 yards, leading to five touchdowns. Davone Bess, one of the most successful wideouts in program history, has 496 yards and six TDs on 41 catches.

Utah State proved to be a tougher foe than expected last weekend, but were it not for a couple of big plays the score would not have been nearly as close. The Hawaii special teams surrendered a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by one of the nation's most dangerous return men (Kevin Robinson) who later in the contest raced 77 yards for a touchdown from Leon Jackson. Refusing to give in to Robinson and the Aggies, Solomon Elimimian put himself on the line for the Hawaii defense and came up with a career-high 20 tackles in being named the WAC Defensive Player of the Week. Hawaii has often been exposed defensively, mainly because the unit has to spend so much time on the field after the quick- strike offense does its job, and yet this season the squad is actually second in the WAC in run defense (116.8 ypg), total defense (320.8 ypg) and scoring defense (21.8 ppg) after six outings. The squad is first in the conference in both sacks (3.8) per game and tackles for loss (8.8), placing sixth and seventh, respectively, on a national scale.

James Callier came away with 93 yards and two touchdowns on the ground for the Spartans, with the team constantly running the ball even though they gained a mere 134 yards on 48 attempts. The other option for the SJSU offense was signal-caller Adam Tafralis who connected on 22-of-30 for 302 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Kevin Jurovich had one of those two scoring grabs, making 10 total receptions for a team-best 161 yards against Idaho last week. The lack of a viable rushing attack had the Spartans ranked 117th in the nation after play on Saturday with a mere 65.3 ypg on the ground. A huge part of the problem is that Patrick Perry never made it through the summer with a knee injury and Yonus Davis is still not 100 percent with a sprained ankle. Averaging a pitiful 2.1 yards per rushing attempt means that defenses can focus more on stopping Tafralis than anything else this season. However, the gunslinger is not going away quietly, completing 68 percent of his attempts for 10 touchdowns and just six picks.

The Vandals scored the first points of the game last Saturday, but from there the contest belonged to San Jose State. The defense for the home team did surrender a hefty 183 yards on the ground, but when paired with a mere 68 yards passing it didn't seem like much at all. More importantly, the Spartan defense was able to save its strength because it was on the field for just 58 plays. Demetrius Jones was credited with a team-high 10 tackles for the Spartans, while Dimitrous Chattman made half of his four stops behind the line of scrimmage, including one of the unit's three sacks in the outing. Not to be overlooked was Matt Castelo with his eight tackles and two TFLs. Even though Castelo is second on the team with 59 tackles and has a team-best 7.5 TFLs, he still hasn't managed to get in on a single quarterback through six games, which is why the team is ranked seventh in the conference and tied for 105th in the country with just one sack per game. TFLs boast a similar story, with the team ranked last in the WAC and 112th in the nation with just over four quarterback takedowns per outing.

The nation's top scoring offense may have some issues on the defensive side of the ball, but as long as Colt Brennan has his way the Spartans won't have a prayer in this meeting.

Sports Network Predicted Outcome: Hawaii 56, San Jose State 24