UH goes from bad to worse

SAN DIEGO >> For the University of Hawaii football team, it was one of those days that ends in San Diego State’s 55-0 smackdown.

It was a day when the Rainbow Warriors were intercepted four times — two of which were returned for touchdowns — and six of 14 full drives expired after three downs and the average play was 3.0 yards.

It was a day when the Aztecs produced two 100-plus-yard rushers — national leader Donnel Pumphrey’s 112 and Rashaad Penny’s 108 — but bolted to a 14-0 lead on two sucker-play passes for touchdowns in the first quarter.

And it was a day when the Warriors were penalized eight times for 69 yards, including holding violations on their first two kickoff returns, while allowing an average 18.2 yards on punt returns and 40.4 on kickoff returns.

It was a day for an Aztec kicking.

“Nobody is out of the scope for this one,” UH coach Nick Rolovich said. “We didn’t play well in any phase. That’s the confusing part. We didn’t do anything different. I thought we were ready to play. And what percentage goes to San Diego State and what percentage goes on our team and coaches, it’s hard to say.”

Rolovich even changed quarterbacks following a 27-0 first half. Dru Brown, who had started five games in a row, was pulled after going 9-for-16 for 60 yards and two interceptions. Aaron Zwahlen, a second-year freshman and former missionary who last played in a game in 2012, went 3-for-10 for 32 yards and an interception before Brown re-entered.

Asked if the position would be re-evaluated, Rolovich said: “When you throw four picks, I think there are quarterback issues. That position will be up for grabs until either I die or they kick me out of this place. We want the best guy to play. That wasn’t good quarterback play today. That wasn’t good football today. It’s not just the quarterback.”

Brown, who finished 22-for-33 for 135 yards and three picks, was frustrated trying to solve the riddle of the Aztecs’ 3-3-5 attacking defense. The Aztecs would disguise coverages several times in similar situations. Sometimes they would show a three-deep zone, then shift into a cover-2 alignment. Sometimes they would shift from zone to man. Brown would have to scan the coverages, as if he were looking for blips on a driver’s vision test.

“Everything starts with me,” Brown said. “I can’t play like that, and it trickles down. I’ll take full responsibility because I have the ball every play. I can’t turn the ball over like that, especially when it turns into points. We’ll learn from it and get better.”

Without running back Diocemy Saint Juste, who was a late scratch because of a shoulder injury, the Warriors’ running game could not get traction against the Aztecs’ looping front and swarming linebackers. They also could not ignite a spark with their “10” formation of one back and four receivers.

“That obviously didn’t work very well,” Rolovich said.

The UH receivers had difficulty gaining separation against bump-and-run-and-bump defenders. They dropped six passes. “We had enough dropped passes for a year,” Rolovich said.

So, too, did the Aztecs, who missed four potential interceptions. But Ron Smith scored on a 14-yard interception return, and Damontae Kazee’s pick-6 for 54 yards put him in the SDSU record book. Kazee had two interceptions, bringing his four-year total to 15, tops in Aztecs history.

“I thought we played fast tonight,” said SDSU head coach Rocky Long, who doubles as the defensive coordinator. “I thought we kept the game plan very, very simple. Our guys did a nice job of recognizing patterns and jumping routes, so we got our hands on a lot of footballs.”

UH wideout Marcus Kemp, who was limited to five receptions for 34 yards, said: “It was one of the worst offensive performances we’ve had this year. When the offense doesn’t do well, it puts a lot of strain on the defense. All together, as a game, it was one of our worst.”

The Warriors also had to deal with Pumphrey, who has a chance to become the NCAA career leader in rushing yards. At 5 feet 10 and 180 pounds, Pumphrey, who is quick and deceptively strong, does not have a route preference. He is effective hop-scotching between the tackles as sprinting the perimeters. With the Warriors stretched across the tackle box, Pumphrey baited the defense, allowing quarterback Christian Chapman to rescind the handoff and toss scoring passes to David Wells for 13 yards and a leaping Quest Truxton for 9 yards in the opening quarter.

Of Truxton’s touchdown, Chapman said: “Good by him to be able to react on the scramble drill. It has been working well for us.”

“Whenever you run the ball well, the playbook opens up,” UH defensive line coach Legi Suiaunoa said. “We never got a chance to slow down the running game to where we got a chance to take away the play-action.”

Chapman was 7-for-15 for 76 yards. But he added another scoring pass. And the Aztecs, who averaged 7.0 yards per carry, received a statistical bump from Penny’s 73-yard scoring burst.

“Everything did go wrong,” Rolovich said. “But good teams don’t have those days. I don’t think it’ll ever be a lack of effort with this football team. It definitely was a lack of execution, and we’ll see how the team responds. … I don’t think that was a clear picture of our football team tonight, but that was who we were tonight. And part of it was San Diego State making plays and part of it was us screwing it up, and that’s a bad combination against a really good team.”