MĀNOA — In his fourth year as the head coach of the University of Hawai‘i football team, Timmy Chang enjoyed unprecedented success in 2025. The Rainbow Warriors went 9-4, winning a bowl game for the first time since 2020.
Hawai‘i's 2025 breakthrough was preceded by consecutive five-win seasons in 2023 and 2024. In both years, the Rainbow Warriors were one of the first teams in the country to begin spring practices, completing their 15 practice sessions early in order to focus on the program's strength and conditioning program at the end of the semester.
Despite having their season end on Christmas Eve, nearly a full month after each of Chang's three previous years, the Rainbow Warriors were back at practice on Tuesday morning at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex.
"I do like it because we can and it fits our schedule. It fits what we want to do," Chang said following Tuesday morning's practice. "We got a bunch of new guys in there, and so it allows us to just to continue to develop. There's no perfect plan. It's just a plan in which I believe, and we believe, that will help develop our guys and get our guys going."
The rationale behind the early start is based on getting the team's younger and more inexperienced players increased reps during practice, providing ample time for players and coaches to evaluate, tinker and self-scout well after the 15th practice has ended.
After practices are over, the Rainbow Warriors will immerse themselves in a strength training regimen put together by head strength and conditioning coach Bobby Thomas heading into the summer.
Fall camp, which will begin approximately a month before its Aug. 29 season opener at Stanford, will feature full days containing practices, strength and conditioning sessions, and film study.
As for UH's 2026 spring practices, no position group figures to benefit more from the early repetitions than its quarterbacks. The Rainbow Warriors have two active quarterbacks on their spring roster in true freshman Maika Eugenio, as well as Bjorn Jurgensen, a redshirt freshman who transferred from the University of Virginia.
Chang also confirmed after Tuesday's practice that presumed 2026 starter Micah Alejado will be sidelined as he recovers from an ankle injury suffered in the 2025 season opener.
"He's gonna be on the side as he continues [recovering]. The ankle injury was a little bit worse than expected," Chang said of Alejado.
With 2025 backups Luke Weaver [San Jose State] and Dermaricus Davis [Sacramento State] both finding new homes in the transfer portal, Eugenio and Jurgensen will receive close tutoring from Hawai‘i quarterbacks coach Chad Kapanui in the weeks ahead. Both took equal turns throwing on Tuesday, catching Chang's attention.
"It's the first time I got to see their arms live. I thought Bjorn threw the ball really well and Maika throws the ball really well," Chang said. "The things that you can clean up are the reads, the timing. But as far as being quarterbacks and being able to play the position, pretty excited about those guys."
Due to the nature of the NCAA transfer portal, UH staffers had to scramble in order to get its new additions signed and enrolled in classes. Dozens of newcomers were seen on the field on Tuesday, including receiver Audric Harris, a slot receiver from the University of Washington. Harris is one of 13 graduates of national high school football powerhouse Bishop Gorman [Las Vegas] on the spring roster.
"Those memories that that we made at Bishop Gorman, they kind of carry with us, and we're looking to make some more here," he said.
Though Chang had the final say in starting the team's spring earlier than most, he's part of a growing coalition of college football coaches who lamented the calendar of the college football season. Programs across the country are feeling inconvenienced by dates put in place by the NCAA during and after the season.
"I think we're such in a rush to move forward and get on to the next thing and finish what we all started to do, and that's to just coach and develop young men, to develop student-athletes, and continue to pour into these guys," Chang said. "You look at it in ways where in this business, there's guys who are not performing and didn't get the results that they wanted. And then there's other sides of it, there's guys are excelling and doing really good, guys get taken from other jobs and they're leaving teams high and dry. In my opinion, this is not the way to go. It puts a lot of stress on a lot of the other half of academia, academics, admissions, those type of things as there's moving parts to getting student-athletes in."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
