Hawaii stumbles in home opener, falling to UNLV 21-6
· Yahoo Sports
In the calamity before the storm, the Hawaii football team struggled to find its way in Saturday’s 21-6 loss to UNLV at the Ching Complex.
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An announced sellout of 15,014 — there were 13,660 through the turnstiles — saw the Rebels make the most of the Rainbow Warriors’ mistakes and lapses to retain the Island Showdown Trophy.
Quarterback Jackson Arnold rushed for two touchdowns and Jai’Den “Jet” Thomas raced 50 yards for the dagger score as the Rebels won their fourth in a row in this series.
“We’ve got to find a way to get things corrected,” said Timmy Chang, who is 1-4 as UH head coach against UNLV. “It really starts with me.”
UNLV evened its record at 1-1. In dropping their Mountain West opener, the Warriors fell to 0-2 overall. They host New Mexico State next on Saturday.
The Warriors managed 3.9 yards per play, went 1-for-3 in the red zone, missed a field goal for the second week in a row, and dropped a sure touchdown pass in the end zone.
“We have to stick to the game plan,” quarterback Micah Alejado said. “When we got to the red zone, we fell off the script. It was a tough loss, but we’ve got a lot of football left.”
The Rebels went with a mix of defensive schemes to counter the Warriors’ run-and-shoot offense. There was a 3-2 box featuring five defensive backs and a blitzer. The Rebels also placed an outside linebacker in the alley to obscure passes to the flats. Andre Porter knocked down two passes in the same series — one on the left side, the other on the right.
The Rebels sacked Alejado five times, knocked down three of his passes and tipped another, and came up with the decisive interception with 3:42 to play. Alejado twice had to exit for a play each time — once after being hit after crossing the UH sideline, the second time after experiencing calf cramps.
“I’m good,” Alejado said after the game. “It’s just getting a hit, but I’ll be good. And I felt cramps. I just have to get rehydrated.”
The Warriors could not capitalize on two big opportunities in the second half.
After advancing to the UNLV 15, Alejado fired a pass into the end zone that slotback Blaze Kamoku could not secure. Alejado, who suffered cramps on the play, was helped to the sideline. Backup quarterback Bjorn Jurgensen was summoned.
Jurgensen hit slotback Audric Harris on a post route. Harris grabbed the third-down pass in the end zone, then fell backward with the ball in his grasp. It then appeared safety Trey Fulton fell on Harris, pulling away the ball. After a review, the officials ruled it was an incomplete pass and that Fulton did not commit a targeting foul.
“It’s up to the refs,” Harris said. “If they say it wasn’t (a touchdown catch), it wasn’t. I’m always going to say it was. Everybody on the sideline thought it was.”
For the second game in a row, a questionable call went against the Warriors.
“Some of those things are out of our control,” Chang said. “Just find a way to get the guys ready for the next play, the next series.”
Sean Olvera-Harle then kicked a 33-yard field goal to close UH to 14-6.
In the fourth quarter, the Warriors faced a fourth-and-1 from the UNLV 10. On a dive that worked earlier in the drive, this time defensive tackle Lucas Conti stopped 5-foot-11, 230-pound powerback Sitani Mikaele for no gain as the Warriors forfeited possession.
A little rain and a lot of Arnold lifted the Rebels to a 14-3 lead at the intermission.
Arnold, a double transfer from Oklahoma and then Auburn, scored on runs of 7 and 2 yards to account for the Rebels’ first-half scoring. His 12-yard keeper set up his first touchdown.
In the second quarter, Arnold connected with Kayden McGee on a 44-yard pass to advance the ball to the UH 8. Two plays and two UH timeouts later, Arnold sprinted into the B gap between the left tackle and left guard for the 14-3 lead.
Arnold, a 6-1, 22 -pound senior, was able to neutralize the Warriors’ pressure with play-action passes and elusive running. He ran for 71 first-half yards on 11 non-sack scrambles and keepers. UH’s lone sack came when Arnold slipped to the turf while trying to launch a Hail Mary as time expired in the first half.
“He’s a big dude, and he can make it tough,” UH safety Kona Moore said of Arnold. “And the running back (Thomas), too.”
Arnold finished 8-for-18 for 116 yards. But he was not intercepted, and rarely hit. He finished with 99 yards on 15 non-sack rushes.
Thomas netted 143 rushing yards — 50 of them coming a play after cornerback Quandarius Keyes intercepted Alejado’s sideline pass late in the fourth quarter.
“All we can do is control our part,” said Moore, who finished with 10 tackles. “We made so many mistakes on defense that we need to correct. We have time to correct things.”
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