His once-crisp University of Hawaii jersey was sweat-stained to the point that it was getting hard to make out the well-worn number “22” on the front.
But even after a school-record 39 carries for 202 yards and two touchdowns Saturday night, its owner, running back Diocemy Saint Juste, his breathing unlabored, was still able to sprint to the grandstands to pose for selfies with his growing legion of fans.
“Diocemy doesn’t get tired,” quarterback Dru Brown said. “Or, if he does, he doesn’t show it.”
Saint Juste showed resiliency, determination, patience and competitiveness, but little sign of fatigue in pacing the Rainbow Warriors to their first Mountain West Conference victory of the season, 37-26 over San Jose State.
On a night when the ’Bows had several self-inflicted setbacks to overcome, Saint Juste was their poster player for putting disappointment in the rear view mirror and pressing on with purpose.
He was stuffed on UH’s first play of the game for 1 yard and then in something rarely seen from him, fumbled away the ball on the second one, opening the way for the Spartans, who recycled it into a 3-0 lead on the way to a 10-0 first-quarter advantage.
“Somebody got in underneath, I guess, and got the ball away,” Saint Juste said of his first fumble in 190 carries dating to October 2016.
Was he worried? “Not at all, you’ve just go to clear (the memory) and go on,” Saint Juste said. “With this offensive line it was inevitable, we’d get the big plays back.”
The ’Bows (3-4) rode his back time and again to set up scores and hold off San Jose State and, in the process, end a streak of four losses.
He picked up 30 of those yards on a 75-yard drive and scored the first touchdown. He added another 30 on the second drive that gave the ’Bows a lead that, however precarious, they never lost.
On the next two drives he supplied runs of 39 and 42 yards.
“He’s a grinder and I know he’ll do whatever it takes, how many times it takes, to get us a victory,” Brown said. “I don’t have any issues feeding him the ball when we need it.”
The night’s work produced Saint Juste’s third 200-plus-yard game this season, one of only two players in the Football Bowl Subdivision to accomplish the feat (Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor is the other) and made him the first UH rusher to produce back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons (1,094 and counting).
Afterward head coach Nick Rolovich said he apologized to Saint Juste for the extended labor. “(But) he told me he was fine,” Rolovich said.
When Hall of Fame college football coach John McKay was asked about overworking his ballcarriers, he famously replied:
“Why not? It isn’t very heavy. Besides, (they) don’t belong to a union.”
Well, the football still weighs just under a pound (except maybe in New England) and running backs aren’t unionized, yet.
We know this today because Saint Juste carried the ball a school-record 39 times, breaking Joey Iosefa’s mark of 37, and would have done more.
“I’ll take as many as they give me,” he said before hustling up two flights of stairs to an interview room.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
