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Hawaiians Chang, Owens looking to shine on the big stage
By Jeremy Harness January 14, 2005 |
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SAN FRANCISCO - There are plenty of players that will take the field at SBC Park for the East-West Shrine Game that people will easily recognize. Cal’s J.J. Arrington and Texas running back Cedric Benson come to mind immediately. And there are other dynamic players that may not have been seen as much by the public at large, such as Hawaii receiver Chad Owens. See, when most people on the East Coast are comfortably tucked into their beds, Hawaii, which is five time zones behind, is getting ready to hit the field. Thus, the exposure factor is immediately in play, and there’s one strike against Owens. Timmy Chang? The only thing most people would know is that he set a new record for passing yards in a career, and you can get that on any “bottom line” box score on ESPN. But at least Chang has that. But Owens, the small firecracker of a wideout who became Chang’s primary target last season, may be solely relying on Saturday’s game to catch the imagination of the public and show that what he did in Hawaii’s pass-crazy offense wasn’t a fluke. “I’m thankful to be here, for me to have the opportunity to be out here with the best of them, to showcase to all the scouts that I can play with the best of them and play at that next level,” Owens said. Adds Chang: “Chad Owens is one of the receivers that you need to get the ball to him. It’s simple math. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that he’s the athlete on the team. When you get the ball in his hands, good things happen. “It was very simple for me.” The two islanders have two things going against them going into Saturday’s game. For one, they are both undersized for their positions - Chang is 6-foot-1 while Owens is listed as 5-foot-9 but really looks more like 5-foot-6 - and don’t necessarily fit the NFL prototype. “(But) that’s for them to worry about,” Chang said, addressing the size concern that NFL scouts may have. “I’m going to remain the same and keep working hard and trying to do my best.” Neither player said they care very much about which NFL team they end up playing for - just as long as they get in the league. For Chang, his numbers obviously speak for themselves. But for Owens, a guy who just burst onto the scene this fall, Saturday’s Shrine Game may hold the key to high status come April. “I wanted nothing more than to have a successful season, a healthy and productive one,” said Owens, who suffered a torn medial collateral ligament in his knee in 2002. “Good things happened. I just kept staying positive. Next thing you know, one thing led to another, and I probably had the best season of my career.” No, Owens certainly had his best year. He really broke out in the final two games of the regular season to catapult the Warriors to the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl last month, compiling eight receiving touchdowns - he also had a punt return for another score - and a mind-boggling 438 yards against two Big 10 schools, Northwestern and Michigan State. Owens finished the 2004 season with 1,290 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns, which ultimately earned him a spot in the Shrine Game. When asked if he needed a great performance in the game to assure himself of a high draft selection, Chang said it wasn’t a huge deal. “I think the practices are more important than the game,” Chang said. “There’s a lot of scouts here (right now). (But) if I don’t get picked high, it doesn’t matter. I’m just trying to make a team.” While operating Hawaii’s run-and-shoot offense, Chang worked exclusively out of the shotgun, which allowed him a tad more time to read the defense without having to move around very much before getting rid of the football. Even though he already gets the ball out quickly, even for someone using the shotgun, he’s been working on his drop-back technique, which he’s expected to use a lot more at the next level. “It’s definitely something I need to learn,” Chang said. “It’s something that I’m always getting used to, and I’m feeling more and more comfortable as I do it.” Despite passing for 17,072 yards and shattering Ty Detmer’s career record, it hasn’t all been peaches and cream for Chang. Besides being benched during a handful of games as a junior, he nearly lost his head coach, June Jones, who was critically injured in a single-car accident in Honolulu in February of 2001, while Chang was a freshman. Jones recovered quickly enough to return to coaching the following fall, but Chang said it was quite a traumatic time for him as well as his teammates. “We definitely took it very emotionally as a community, as a team, as a whole state,” he said. “We felt for coach Jones at the time, (but) coach Jones came back with a different passion. He just realized more how lucky and how fortunate he was in coaching us. “I loved playing under him.” From a football standpoint, Chang was extremely lucky to have Jones around. Under his system, which often sees pass plays being run roughly 80 percent of the time, Chang was able to break the record as well as throw for 30 touchdowns his senior year. He broke the record in grand fashion against Louisiana Tech, hitting receiver Jason Rivers for a 7-yard touchdown strike in the first quarter of that game, which Hawaii would go on to win. “It was awesome,” Chang said of the touchdown pass that gave him the passing record. “It’s been an awesome year, an awesome career. When I hit Rivers, it was just amazing. He’s a great receiver, and I’m lucky to have a receiver up here with me.” |
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