In the summer, when the sweat dripped, their bodies ached and the beach beckoned daily, defensive lineman Michael Lafaele reminded his University of Hawai'i football teammates they could really be something special this year.

Long before the word "believe" showed up on signs at Aloha Stadium or T-shirts here at the Allstate Sugar Bowl, where they meet Georgia today, these unbeaten (12-0) Warriors came to believe in a mission, their drive for perfection.

After an 11-3 run in 2006 that hadn't resulted in a Western Athletic Conference Championship, "we began to think about what it would be like to have a perfect season," Lafaele said. "It had never been done before (at UH) and we had Colt (Brennan) and all these guys coming back. So, we worked hard, worked on our own and harder and earlier than we ever had before."

Coaches who were not allowed, under an NCAA rule, to work with players in the off-season or mandate their attendance came to be amazed by not only the numbers that turned out for voluntary workouts on campus but the intensity of them. "It was something to look out your (office) window and see 60, 70 guys out there every day working, busting it all-out," assistant coach Jeff Reinebold said.

"It was hard to put in all that time and work away from families, girlfriends and jobs, but we told each other it would pay off if we kept at it and it has," Lafaele said. "It has gotten us here with a perfect record — and one game to go. Our dreams can come true."

Their crusade, for that's really what it has become, has matched the Warriors with the school's most highly ranked post-season opponent, the The Associated Press' No. 4-rated Bulldogs, in the 72,000-seat Superdome, the biggest national stage ever mounted by UH.

BIGGEST UH AUDIENCE

Upward of 12 million households, perhaps five times as many as have ever viewed a UH athletic event before, are expected to tune in the Fox telecast. Millions more will have an interest in what some are calling the second-most compelling matchup of the 32-game bowl season, behind only next week's national championship game between Ohio State and Louisiana State.

They are drawn by the contrasts of the little-known school in the Pacific against a powerful representative of the elite Southeastern Conference. A big-money program versus a change-in-the sofa outfit. Hallowed tradition against hopeful dreams. Two opponents separated, as someone put it, "by an ocean and a gulf."

"A great contrast of styles and cultures," is how Georgia coach Mark Richt terms it. "I'm not sure either one of us knows what to expect and won't until we clash."

People here in New Orleans tell you the Warriors and their growing legions of green, black and white-clad followers have brought an energy to this game they haven't seen in ages. The trumpet player in a jazz band who quickly learned to play "Aloha 'Oe" because it was getting so many requests said he hadn't seen anything like it in 20 years.

Georgia is here for the ninth time and wouldn't be surprised to be back again in another year or two. But so magical has this season of milestone breakthroughs been for the Warriors that many are looking at it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, hence the many folks who have busted open the family piggy banks, taken out loans and scrambled for tickets to get here and be part of it all.

Just as the streets of the French Quarter pulsate with excitement, the Warriors who are responsible for drawing the fans and the national media here have buzzed through the weeklong preparation. Eyes opened wide along Bourbon Street upon arrival, their two noncurfew days were replaced by an attention-to-business attitude on the practice field.

POWERFUL LEADERSHIP

The leaders of this team — and Lafaele, a 6-foot, 300-pound senior with a rebar will and disarming smile, foremost among them — have let it be known the journey doesn't end until tonight. That what began soon after spring practice continues until the final play against Georgia.

For all the attention and well-earned praise heaped upon Brennan the quarterback, people in and around the team also acknowledge the powerful leadership of Lafaele. If Brennan moves the team through the air and spoken message, Lafaele also leads by performance.

"People follow what Michael does, he commands that kind of respect," defensive coordinator Greg McMackin said.

"Every great team I've been around has solid leaders, people like Michael and Colt," said McMackin, who was a coordinator with San Francisco and Seattle in the NFL and the University of Miami in its heyday.

When Lafaele, coming off hand surgery that had kept him out of spring workouts, began the off-season workout regimen, he was joined by Keala Watson, Hercules Satele and others. When teammates saw the workouts were important enough for Lafaele, who has a wife and three children, to spend 12-hour days at school between summer school, workouts and weightlifting, they followed.

"Petty soon all the defensive line was there, then the linebackers and eventually everybody," Reinebold said. "Everybody made sacrifices, and Michael was the driving force."

Coaches like to say teams are built in the off-season and coached during the season, and the Warriors will tell you where they are on Jan. 1 is a result of the time they put in together during May, June and July.

"It is like my wife said after we started winning a bunch of games," Lafaele recalled. "At first she didn't understand why I had to put in so much time in the off-season, but, later, she told me she understood. She knew."

It was because he believed, and, now, so does the state that backs them today in their quest for the perfect ending to the dream of a perfect season.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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