Dave Aranda is the new DE coach

About becoming UH's DL coack, Dave Aranda said:
"I'm very appreciative to be here," said Aranda, who arrived in town Friday. "The coaches seem like great people. They're very welcoming, very humble for what they just put together."

HA Note: "The leader of the best pass defense in Division II football last year is joining the Hawai'i football coaching staff. Dave Aranda, 31, will coach on the defensive line, specializing in tutoring defensive ends."

HA Note: "Aranda and freshly hired UH head coach Greg McMackin will be reunited. Aranda was a graduate assistant and defensive assistant at Texas Tech when McMackin served as the Red Raiders' defensive coordinator. Aranda, who is married and has two daughters, was Delta State's co-defensive coordinator last season. In 2007, the Statesmen led Division II in pass-efficiency defense (77.9 rating), was second in total and scoring defense, and third in run defense. Earlier this month, he accepted the job as Southern Utah's defensive coordinator when Ed Lamb was named as head coach. But when UH promoted McMackin, Aranda received Lamb's permission — and blessing — to move to Manoa."

About taking UH's job a few weeks after taking the DC job at Southern Utah, Aranda said:
"Part of you feels like Bobby Petrino or something. Coach Lamb was very understanding. That made it a lot easier for me. It was a blessing in that way." (HA)

"(Lamb) was very understanding with the whole situation here in Hawaii and Coach McMackin and knew our prior relationship. I owe a lot to him for being that way. It could have been a very tough situation but because of Coach Lamb it wasn't -- it was a very easy decision." (HSB)

HA Note: "Aranda also was the defensive coordinator at his alma mater, Cal Lutheran, and linebackers coach at Houston, when the Cougars played the Warriors in the 2003 Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl. Aranda will bring a unique — and modern — approach to coaching. Skilled in multi-media techniques, he has used computer-generated visual aids to help his players. For instance, he produced a video interspersing footage of an All-Pro defensive lineman and one of his defensive ends. The video was synchronized to music."

Aranda said that DE:
"might say, 'OK, (the All-Pro) is leaning this way, I might want to do that.' You want to do all kinds of fun stuff." (HA)

The best way to reach Generation Xbox, Aranda believes, is to relate to them with videos, music and other multi-media forms.
Aranda says that the best way to relate to players today is via videos, music, and other multi-media forms:
"Instead of having a fox-hole mentality and 'this is football and everything else is separate,' bring the best of everything else to it. We should use whatever (players) go through in their daily lives — music, videos, clips from favorite movies." (HA)

About how his wife (they have been together sice sophomore year of high school) will remain in Mississippi until they sell their home, Aranda said:
"It's difficult being a coach's wife. You get to take off and live in a nice hotel, and recruit, and stay up late with coaches while she's trying to pack, sell the house and raise two girls." (HA)

About how his family is in 20 degree weather with "some freezing rain", Aranda said
"They can't wait to get out here." (HA)

"My wife, when we were here before, loved it," Aranda said. "(His daughters) both just love to run around and play outside. Right now in Cleveland, Miss., it's 20 degrees and it was freezing rain yesterday. So they're very excited to get out here." (HSB)

Abouut his 6 moves since 2000, Aranda said:
"I'm glad to have finally found a place. My wife and I, we have two little girls, and we've been moving around really too much. So it's nice to settle down and keep the winning tradition going on here at Hawaii." (HSB)

HSB Note: "Aranda's connection with McMackin goes back to Texas Tech, where he spent three years working with the then-Red Raiders defensive coordinator as a graduate assistant, concentrating on the defensive ends."

Happy to be reunited with GM, Aranda said:
"I'm thankful to be here, it's good to be reunited with Coach McMackin for sure. I know it's going to be a great situation with a lot of guys returning and a lot of talent. I know Coach McMackin is very excited about the front seven. I'm looking forward to it." (HSB)

About coaching Houston against UH in the brawl-marred Hawaii Bowl, Aranda said:
"It really was a great experience being down for the bowl game. What an unfortunate way to end the game, what an ugly incident, but I try not to let that mar the experience here. It's kind of been the same question, 'Have you ever been down here?' and I mention that game and they all go back to the fight." (HSB)

Excited to work with the other UH coaches, Aranda said:
"I'm really excited to be working with them. The water is nice and the landscape is nice, but it's really the people that make or break where you're at." (HSB)

About his plans for his daughters, Aranda said:
"We're going to the parks. The zoo is going to be a big part of our lives, too." (HA)

HA Note: "There are two spots left to fill. McMackin is expected to hire a coach to oversee the defensive tackles. The last opening will go to a coach who can work with the running backs and offensive linemen."

About the reaction to their coaching staff at the Alabama game, Rich Miano said:
"Some guy in the crowd, who was like 60 years old, said, 'I've never seen a football (coaching) staff that old. It's gotta be the oldest football staff in America.' " (HA)

HA Note: "At age 44 that season, Miano remarkably was the youngest member of the 10-man UH full-time staff that averaged 57.6 years. (UH even had a graduate assistant older than Miano). Last year the average was 55. But when UH kicks off the 2008 season, Miano will be more in the middle. With two vacancies to fill, new head coach Greg McMackin's staff is averaging 47 1/4 years and could get younger.

The addition of 29-year-old Nick Rolovich to coach the quarterbacks, 28-year-old Brian Smith to coach the offensive line and 31-year-old Dave Aranda to coach the defensive line is giving the Warriors a welcome youthful tint it hasn't had for years. The fact that the Warriors are doing it largely by choice and, hopefully, not by tapped-out budget constraints would be a good sign.

Clearly the "geriatric staff" — as some staff members came to jokingly refer to themselves — made that experience pay off with an 11-3 finish in 2006 and record 12-1 showing in 2007. But the change in head coaches also affords UH an opportunity to rebuild — and reload — its coaching staff for the future. It offers an opening to bring in "younger blood" as assistant coach Ron Lee likes to put it. Not to mention fresh perspectives."

HA Note: "In that Rolovich and Smith, UH graduates both, make for interesting studies if not prototypes. As former Warriors, they not only possess a knowledge of the offensive system and the place, but have a considerable investment in the program. If there was anybody you'd like to think might stick around a while in this most transitory of occupations, where we're told the average stay is less than four years, it could be guys such as these. One of the best things the Warriors had going for themselves in the June Jones era was continuity and it showed. Turnover was so minimal as to be the envy of the WAC."
Prior to his year at Delta State, Aranda was defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Division III California Lutheran. There he crossed paths with Brian Smith, who was named UH offensive line coach last week, in 2005. The duo will see a lot of each other once practice starts when the lines go up against each other in one-on-one drills.