Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) – Football Beat Reporter
After an hour-long meeting, you walk over to the water cooler for a little chit-chat with coworkers. Immediately, you find yourself waterboarded with painful small talk. You don’t have any interest in it because you have more pressing matters on your mind like SJSU Football.
I present to you: Water Cooler Talk. A column that supplies you with three (hopefully interesting) topics about San Jose State’s (7-4, 5-3) 27-14 win over Hawaii (3-10, 2-6) to steer your dull conversation into a more ‘survivable’ direction.
First time in a long time
The 2022 season has been an exercise in accomplishing feats that haven’t been done in a long time.
It started with SJSU football going to their second bowl game in the span of three years for the first time since they went in back-to-back years in 1986 and 1987.
On that same note, head coach Brent Brennan is the first coach since Claude Gilbert in those years to take an SJSU squad to two bowl games.
The latest feat? SJSU football clinched its first undefeated season at home since 1978.
It involved a tremendous defensive effort by a multitude of players who arrived in the dog days of 2018 and 2019.
UH’s chances of a comeback vanished when senior defensive ends Junior Fehoko and Cade Hall took down quarterback Brayden Schager on a crucial fourth-and-goal from the eight-yard line.
Fehoko and Hall arrived at SJSU in 2018, following a disastrous two win season in 2017 and won one game in 2018.
Linebacker Kyle Harmon and safety Tre Jenkins arrived the same year and cornerback Nehemiah Shelton came in 2019.
Each of them contributed to holding the Rainbow Warriors to 14 points and 273 yards of offense.
Jenkins led the Spartans with nine tackles while Shelton had eight and had four crucial pass breakups. Harmon had six tackles.
They stuck it out through a plague of bad football the past few years and have come out on the other side with the satisfaction of building something from the ground up.
It’s always darkest before dawn.
A hollow, but peaceful story
I’ll save you the suspense – nothing eventful happened in Chevan Cordeiro’s first matchup against the University of Hawaii since transferring to SJSU football this winter.
He had a modest day, throwing for 208 yards and two passing touchdowns to Elijah Cooks to one interception.
He mentioned there were some back-and-forth chirps in between the lines, but nothing more than that. After the game he dapped up some former teammates and that was that.
Cordeiro was the first and biggest domino to fall amid the Todd-Graham-morally-non-compliant dumpster fire.
Graham was UH’s head coach last fall and created a culture so toxic, it needed to be sorted out in state senate hearings.
Before the game kicked off, I was interested to see if Cordeiro would act differently.
A task that’s it’s difficult since (A) I am not a certified psychoanalyst and (B) Cordeiro doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeves.
He’s predictably cliche after wins, thanking his coach staff and is ‘already focused on winning next week.’ After losses he’s understandably curt and especially Belichikian. Cordeiro’s favorite line is, ‘Just got to watch film and learn from this.’
When he took the field for warmups he prepared the same as he did against Portland State or Fresno State.
It was strictly business for him. No drama a member of the media can turn into a melodramatic Shakespearian playwright.
A testament to two things:
First, an incredible amount of maturity from Cordeiro. He didn’t make the entire game about himself, just did what was needed to win.
Second, both sides can exist peacefully. First-year head coach Timmy Chang has helped the Rainbow Warriors come together on the right track and Cordeiro has found a new home in San Jose.
Here’s to you Mr. Robinson
The running attack finally woke up on Saturday after a five-week sabbatical.
Fourth-year running back Kairee Robinson went for a career-high 148 yards and the Spartans rushed for a grand total of 191.
It was virtually non-existent in their past five games, averaging a lowly 51 yards and went for less than 38 on three of those occasions.
The hope is that Robinson’s performance was a sneak peak into what fans can expect next season.
With sixth-year wide receiver Elijah Cooks leaving for bigger and better things, SJSU football needs to fill about 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns worth of production on offense.
Chances are slim SJSU can reel in another Cooks from the transfer portal. His skillset and chemistry with Cordeiro was undeniably electric and a one-in-a-million.
Robinson can potentially fill the massive black hole Cooks’ leaving will create in the stat sheet.
On a limited number of touches, he racked up 696 on the ground and 4.9 yards per carry this season. He attempted 14 or more rushes twice – 24 against Hawaii and 20 against Wyoming – his two best games this season.
Every offensive lineman could return next season, leaving a serious potential for him to take the Mountain West by storm in 2023.
Never forget what he did to this poor cornerback from Western Michigan.
As the youngins say, Robinson’s hit was ‘giving’ demolition derby.
Monday after Thanksgiving can be a woozy so here’s a 20-minute long compilation of Demolition Derby HARD HITS.