Hawaii defense makes a stand to turn back Wyoming

It came down to one last stand for the Paniolo Trophy.

After freshman quarterback Chevan Cordeiro staked Hawaii to its first lead of the night, it was the UH defense’s turn to bring home the coveted hardware. They delivered, roping the Cowboys into submission in UH’s 17-13 victory on Saturday at Aloha Stadium.

The Cowboys had 1 minute and 19 seconds to drive 68 yards to victory. They flew thousands of miles and came up 14 yards short.

“We prepare for that all the time,” defensive coordinator Corey Batoon said. “That’s almost to the T the situation we work the most. Up by four, two timeouts on each side, gotta go the length of the field to score. Rolo (head coach Nick Rolovich) usually likes to start with a minute 40 left. It was pretty close (to that). But yeah, we played that situation over and over and over again against our offense. Good on good.”

Batoon reminded the players of that as they huddled up. UH had held firm all night against the Cowboys’ power running game. It was on its way to holding its opponent to 244 total yards, a season best.

Defensive end Zeno Choi felt a rush when his unit took the field one last time. He knew his team could atone for losing the perpetual trophy in Laramie, Wyo., last season.

“It was one of those series, you had to depend on each other, trust one another, trust that we’re all going to do our job and our part to become successful,” Choi said. “It was one of those things, you can’t really do anything but trust each other and play your football, ball out and just do your job.”

Wyoming had to abandon its power running game at that point, and quarterback Tyler Vander Waal dropped back to pass. He completed four passes to get up to the UH 39, but by then Wyoming burned its second-to-last timeout with 31 seconds left.

“We knew once they got to one timeout, they would have a hard time working the middle of the field,” Batoon said. “So it kind of played into our hands a little bit. We played the percentages. With no timeouts left, you average about 10 seconds per play. So we knew we had to get about three plays there to get the stop. And when they threw the ball over the middle, we knew, first down or not, that was going to be the ballgame.”

Once Wyoming got up to the 24 with 24 seconds left via a pass interference call, UH got huge plays from multiple sources.

Cornerback Eugene Ford broke up a potential winning pass to James Price in the corner of the end zone.

“Huge. Huge,” said defensive end Kaimana Padello, who had two of his team’s season-high-tying five sacks, and had three total tackles for loss plus a forced fumble.

Then, Choi busted through and sacked Vander Waal for a loss of 6 — the fifth sack of the night.

After Wyoming’s final timeout with 14 seconds left, Padello hurried Vander Waal into an incompletion. The rattled Cowboys followed that with a false start.

“We knew what we had, we knew what we had to do. Everybody was dialed in,” Padello said.

On fourth and 21, Vander Waal got just enough distance to Price for the first down with a second left. But the Cowboys ran out of time; when Vander Waal got his team up to the line of scrimmage and spiked the ball, it was ruled that time expired.

It was the first time UH did not allow an offensive touchdown since a 13-10 win over San Jose State in 2014.