The Hawaii Run-N-Shoot That You Dreamed About is Finally Here

Yeah, I'm in the Pineapple Suite, and there's a turd in my room! Someone got in here and took a shit, not in the toilet, in my luggage.

- Shane, White Lotus S1

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Hawaii is one of those schools that is just cool for college football. They’re a unique program in more ways than one—the most obvious being that because they are located in Hawaii, they often kick off their home games no earlier than midnight EST! Yeesh.

And if you haven’t spent at least one night gnawing on your fingers until 3AM—watching a player you rostered from UH’s roster—praying to the CFF gods that he’ll save your matchup that day, then I can only tell you that you’re missing out on one of life’s greatest experiences.

I don’t know how many times I’ve told this story before, and I don’t really care—if you’re a long time reader and are bored of it, feel free to skip forward, but I’ll rehash it for the new readers.

I want to take you back to Fall 2021. I’m in a league with a few of my buddies called the “Locker Room Lads Invitational”. One of them, Jake, introduced me to the game of College Fantasy Football a few years earlier.

I felt that my roster was the best of the bunch in the league, and the results were verifying this assumption. Save for one loss early in the year, my squad was obliterating the competition week to week. I knocked off Jake in a sort of prodigy student overcomes his master kind of way a week or so earlier. The boys were buzzing. Despite a terrible season-ending injury to my first round pick, Mo Ibrahim, in the opening week, I was very content with the state of each position group on this roster.

I wanted to finish the regular season as the #1 seed. “It only feels right—if there’s any justice in this world, it will happen” I said to myself.

How many of you out there remember the Korean Netflix hit series Squid Game? This will be relevant soon.

It’s a seemingly nondescript October Saturday. I’m visiting my parents for the week and we just got back from a bike ride that morning. I tuck into the basement and turn the TV on with a plan to park my fat ass there for at least the foreseeable future.

Some of you CFFers out there might know this feeling: an hour or so in and things aren’t going well. In fact, things are looking so dire after Arkansas receiver Treylon Burks took a 56 yard carry to the house (there’ll be some poetic irony to this, stay tuned) on top of two receiving scores, that, after about two hours, I tune out. Blake Corum’s punk ass punches another two scores in for good measure as that scoundrel Jim Harbaugh leaves him in the game despite dominating Northwestern 33-7. “I’m taking an L this week.” I said.

As if the myriad of body blows weren’t enough, to add insult to injury, former Purdue TE Payne Durham not only scored a TD but cleared 100 yards receiving. Let me just say this here and now: I am so glad this mother****** has left CFB—he would ALWAYS crack out when an opposing team played me with him rostered.

Seriously, here’s a fun exercise for you: go to Durham’s career game log, in the games where he scores a TD (or two), there is a 99% probability I was matched up against a team that rostered that bastard that week in CFF. Good riddance to him.

Anyways, I’ve tuned out at this point and I tell my parents about this show called Squid Games, which I binged a few weeks earlier. They’ve both heard of it. One thing leads to another and we decide to binge it that day. And I mean literally binge it, we started the season and then around midnight we finished it.

My initial plan was to go to sleep but my inner degenerate got the best of me (as it often does), so I caved and checked the Fantrax app. What do I find? WKU’s prolific duo of Zappe and Sterns put in some major work for the squad.

So too did Nevada’s Cole Turner, who earned himself first ballot VP HoF status and a lifetime IHOP membership gift card by outdoing that stupid bastard Durham at the TE position with a massive 26.5 point score in half PRR formats (how’s 100 yards, eight receptions, and TWO scores for your goofy ass, Durham?).

Ah shit… “what am I to do now? Not watch the Hawaii game like an absolute clown?” No—my parents went to sleep, and I tucked in to my couch ready to rock. It took me a solid 10 to 20 minutes but I eventually found a stream for the game.

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And just so you’re fully aware of the situation: I’m down maybe 15 points from my opponent at this point after being down 100+ earlier that afternoon. Some big deficits were closed by some big ballers and now we’re within striking distance with a player on Hawaii’s roster—Calvin Turner—who is averaging close to 20 PPG at this point in the season, queuing up vs. New Mexico State. It’s not a guarantee that we’ll win, but if he just does what he normally does, we’re golden.

The game starts and things aren’t materializing the way they're supposed to. Hawaii just can’t get anything going. They try to target our man but it’s broken up or he drops it every time. They give him carries—stuffed near the LOS. He’s returning kicks—fair catch.

However, one of the sicko things about C. Turner was that in 2021 he was the entire Hawaii offence (and I mean that almost literally). He ran the ball, received passes, and returned punts and kickoffs. So it was damn near impossible to keep this guy down for four quarters. I remained confident that things would trend up eventually. Until, something terrible happened…

Turner finally fields a punt that he can return and runs about 20 yards before being tackled. He gets up gingerly and looks at his hand. Of course, the moron commentators make no note of it and thus no information is given. Hawaii’s offence runs out and Turner is nowhere to be found. Commentators still haven’t noticed anything… incredible.

It’s halftime now and I am pissed. Doubly so from earlier. At least if we got whopped my hopes wouldn’t have been teased and I would have just gone to sleep. It’s probably 2AM now and there’s an update that Turner has injured his fingers on his right hand. I decide to finally call it a night. That was it, Turner was done and my team was going to come up short about 10 points. Even if he comes back, how’s he going to catch the football?

A few hours later I awake and once again, my inner degenerate tells me to check my phone. The instinct to fall back asleep is particularly prevalent in this moment but I do eventually succumb to my weakest self. Nowadays, I’d be fast asleep (I probably would have just gone to sleep at midnight regardless) but this was pre-VP creation when I really cared about my CFF leagues.

I open the Fantrax app but my brain refuses to process what my eyes are seeing for a good minute. My team’s score is higher than my opponent’s, which I know can’t be right because I watched it all to the end last night. Turner was done, he was out… and he wasn’t coming back, or even if he did, he couldn’t do anything.

I navigate to my team’s matchup in order to see what sort of hijinks are going on with the scores, thinking that I’m going to have to contact Fantrax app support or something (anticipating an angry message from my competitor soon, I was the league manager).

That’s when I see it—Turner did, in fact, come back into the game (with a fucking CLUB on his right hand), and took a handoff 75 yards to the crib. BANG.

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I couldn’t believe it. I was pumped, but also scolded myself for missing what would have been one of the great TV watching moments of my adult life.

Nonetheless, the Rainbows (and especially Calvin Turner) have held a special place in my heart ever since. What is even crazier is that Hawaii and NMS had already played against each other once that season in September. Hawaii won and Turner scored 21 points, including this ridiculous TD:

So, you can imagine that it was frustrating when I was watching the second leg of this matchup in real time and saw Turner struggle. I didn’t need his 20 points the first go-around to win my matchup that week, but now all of a sudden we can’t buy a point in game two?? My guy looks like the second coming of Barry Sanders in the first game, breaking tackles left and right, but forgot how to catch the football in the second game??? C’Mon!

It’s all water under the bridge now. I feel like I should find a Hawaii Calvin Turner jersey, and purchase it if it exists, and then have it framed on my wall for all to see (if anyone has one let me know).

There isn’t a Calvin Turner on the 2025 Hawaii roster to my knowledge. But there are a lot of interesting names at WR, and a very exciting prospect at QB. I’ve felt that—over the last two seasons in particular—the Rainbows have been held back by subpar QB play.

There’s no need to rehash my thoughts regarding former UH QB Brayden Schager as I’ve voiced my opinion about his football playing abilities on many occasion in the past.

Long story short, I think that in order for this system to work properly, you need a baller at QB; and Alejado at least looked the part in his first and only start vs. New Mexico (would have been filthy for the full circle moment of this story had it been New Mexico STATE, but alas, the world isn’t always fair).

Anyhoo, let’s take a look at this so-called ‘Run-N-Shoot’ system, shall we…

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Hawaii’s Run-N-Shoot Scheme

PPG AVERAGE — QB: 21.4 — WR1: 13.4 — WR2: 12.7¹ (half ppr)

There isn’t a lot of data on Chang because he hasn’t been a play caller for very long. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have an extended history to observe this system, which has been utilized at Hawaii under several different regimes over the past 25 years. Chang himself even played QB in this system in the 2000s.

In his first two seasons at Hawaii, Chang’s Rainbow Warriors skewed incredibly pass-heavy (62% in 2023, 58.5% in 2024). His starting QB averaged 40 or more passes per game each season, which is is not surprising given what we know of the Run-N-Shoot system, though you might have expected the pace of play calling to be faster than 67 plays per game through two seasons (which is toward the upper bound of the average range in the FBS).

Table 1.

In terms of what the Run-N-Shoot actually is, I will link an excerpt from an article I did on Hawaii’s offensive system in 2023; if you don’t mind, I am going to save myself the trouble and copy-paste the relevant details here for you:

Everybody’s probably heard of the ‘Run-N-Shoot’ offence, but few among us actually know what that means. I consulted a trusted source (wikipedia) and found this: The run and shoot offence (also known as Run N' Shoot) is an offensive system which emphasizes receiver motion and on-the-fly adjustments of receivers' routes in response to different defences.

That doesn’t seem that crazy, but it is an offence that is synonymous with Hawaii football. Current Hawaii Head coach Timmy Chang actually ran this system as a player in the mid 2000s, and it’s been employed by various Rainbow coaches over the last 25 years.

As a coach, Chang joined Hawaii last season (2022), after spending five seasons in various capacities with Nevada (WRs coach 2021, 2017; TEs coach 2018-2020). He had the opportunity to call plays in his system as the OC of Div. II program Emory and Henry in 2016. That year, the Wasps had three separate WRs receive over 450 yards and five or more TDs.

Emory and Henry Receiving Stats 2016. Source

Before that he spent two seasons as the OC at Jackson State (2014-15). Unfortunately, I was unable to find reliable stats for these two seasons.

So that’s basically Chang’s coaching career summarized (he got his start as a GA at SMU in 2012). It’s safe to say — despite its notoriety — he hasn’t actually had much success with this system as a coach (yet).

The Run-N-Shoot system itself, however, has shown to be a successful formula in the past for WR production in particular.

In Chang’s last season as the QB of Hawaii (2004), Chad “Mighty Mouse” Owens led the team with 102 receptions for 1290 yards and 17 TDs. The WR2 finished with a solid stat line as well, receiving over 970 yards on 80 catches and seven TDs. An interesting nugget: Owens had four TDs in a single game on two different occasions in 2004, and both times were vs. B1G opponents Northwestern and Michigan State.

In Chang’s sophomore season (2001), WR Ashley Lelie had the greatest year ever for a UH receiver, grabbing 84 receptions for 1,713 yards and 19 TDs. He set a school record for average receiving yards per game (142.8).

While former NFL’er Davone Bess was there (2005-07), he went over 1000 yards receiving in three straight seasons. I assume the Rainbows were running the same offence or something similar during these years.

Davone Bess career UH stats. Source

There are more notable seasons but I think the point has been made. Clearly this system has been a good one as far as WR production is concerned.

I wish I could tell you which of those early/mid 2000s WRs played where in the offence, but this was before my time as a fan. Bess is a smaller player (5’10”), so I assume he operated from the slot. So is Chad Owens—who is listed at 5’8”; he more so than Bess most likely operated from the slot.

So it would appear, at least from a cursory look back, that the slot position in this offence has been the primary read in years past.

I think that pretty much summarizes what you need to know about the historical production within this system. Chang’s first season continued the trend at WR with both Pofele Ashlock and Steven McBride fielding productive campaigns. The 2024 season wasn’t quite as fruitful. In fact, even Ashlock himself (UH’s WR1 on the year), did not really stand out as a CFF asset.

However, the final game of the season offered a preview of what could be coming all season long in 2025. Forget 40 passes per game, new starting QB Micah Alejado chucked it 57 times(!) vs. New Mexico. Of course, it being a game vs. New Mexico (who had a terrible defence in 2024), probably means we should also temper our expectations somewhat for 2025.

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Personnel

While most are all familiar with names like Pofele Ashlock, and Nicholas Cenacle (Canadian!), another player who stood out at WR this offseason was supposedly Stanford transfer Jackson Harris. From a beat report out of Hawaii:

Alejado said the 6-foot-3 Harris and Kentucky transfer Brandon White have been instant-impact additions to a group that includes Pofele Ashlock, Nick Cenacle and Dekel Crowdus. The last two returned to UH after entering the portal during the December window.

“(Harris) has been making plays the whole spring. And it's going to show in August,” Alejado said. “I’d say it's the biggest steal out of the portal for us this year.”

Harris spent two seasons in Palo Alto, where he caught a total of six passes for less than 100 yards and one score. He, Ashlock, and Cenacle figure to be the three receivers on the field the most this fall. Crowdus transferred to Wisconsin in May.

Ashlock should reprise his role in the slot, which bodes well for his outlook. Cenacle (6’2) and Harris (6’3) I’d imagine will be on the outside.

It should be noted that in Alejado’s first start, Ashlock was targeted 10 times, while Cenacle was targeted 12 times. Other players like Spencer Curtis and Jonah Panoke were targeted eight and 12 times too. Turns out when the QB passes the ball 57 times, there are plenty of targets to go around!

Though I suspect Alejado will also end up averaging close to 40 attempts per game over the course of the 2025 season. Maybe he gets to 45 if he’s really a baller like we think he is, but even at 40 attempts per game, the primary and secondary receivers can be very effective in a CFF context (assuming some degree of decent completion percentage).

I actually think Cenacle and Ashlock are pretty on par with each other in terms of profiles, and I especially like Cenacle as a cheaper alternative to Ashlock in drafts.

Harris is an intriguing one. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he ends up being WR1 either, but all things being equal, if I’m drafting from this room, I’m going: Ashlock, Cenacle, and Harris in that order until further notice.

I think this is a make or break year for Coach Chang and his offence. The experiment has not worked thus far, but to be fair that was with a different QB who simply didn’t have the ability to make this system function. Alejado offers a lifeline here. He not only was impressive passing the football but took 10 carries for 57 yards on top of his five passing TDs during his debut last season.

At its best, this system can produce some of CFB’s most productive QBs and WRs, but it all hinges on whether Alejado really is ‘that guy’. I’m tentatively optimistic, and I think my QB/WR rankings have reflected that sentiment thus far. ◾

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1. Sample of data from 2018-2024, excluding 2020.