For University of Hawaii football coach Nick Rolovich, the video of Saturday’s 41-38 loss to UNLV was just as discouraging as the live performance.

Rolovich was disappointed in a lost fumble that set up UNLV’s winning field goal, receivers whose incorrect techniques led to several drops, a defense that relinquished too many third-down conversions, and the sloppiness of the pregame routine.

While praising quarterback Dru Brown’s leadership and development, Rolovich expressed concern about a costly turnover. Brown has lost a fumble in four consecutive games.

“It’s like a mouse trap,” Rolovich said. “Did the cheesemaker make really good cheese or did the mouse do something stupid? What’s your perspective? From our perspective, we’re not securing the football well enough. From (UNLV coach) Tony Sanchez, he probably feels really good about the cheese he made. The mouse doesn’t get two chances at the mouse trap. He’s had more chances at the cheese. He’d better find something else to eat.”

Whether the turnover problems will lead to a personnel change, Rolovich said, “I don’t know. We’ll look at it. I’ll always play the best guys.”

Rolovich said the receivers had lapses when they tried to use their bodies, and not just solely their hands, to catch passes.

“When they try to use their shoulder pads — which are protective devises that are designed for things to bounce off of them — yeah, they’re going to drop ’em,” Rolovich said. “Hands were designed and evolved to grab things. … I don’t understand what we don’t get about that. It’s that simple.”

The Rebels converted 62.5 percent of their third-down plays.

“If we get half of those, it’s a different game,” Rolovich said. “Basically, if they wanted 3 yards, they got 3 yards.”

Defensive coordinator Kevin Lempa said: “I never felt we had control on defense. We never felt, ‘OK, we’re going to stop them here, or we’re going to make a big play here.’ It’s not like they weren’t trying. We didn’t execute some of our techniques and we didn’t get a turnover. That makes a difference.”

Rolovich sensed there would be concerns when the organization of pregame warmups was “sloppy.” In the pat-and-go drill, in which receivers run routes without defenders, there were 10 incompletions. “We shouldn’t have incompletions on game day with pat-and-go,” Rolovich said, adding the position groups were not crisp in reporting for assignments.

“We were so much better the last two games,” Rolovich said. “This one, I didn’t like.”

Rolovich said the problems are fixable. He also praised UNLV for “coming into a place that is tough to play and probably playing harder than us. I don’t think we didn’t play hard. We didn’t play hard enough. (The Rebels) came to win that football game, and they played like it.”

Rolovich said both teams had sufficient opportunities.

“If you’re not a fan of either one of the teams, you probably thought that was a pretty good college football game,” Rolovich said. “If you’re a Hawaii fan, you’re angry because there were opportunities to win that game.”