Provo losing streak intact as UH suffers critical loss to BYU

PROVO, UTAH >> In the chill of the 41-degree night, Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich addressed the cold-hard reality of Saturday’s 49-23 football loss to Brigham Young at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

“Damn you, LaVell Edwards and your curse,” Rolovich said of the stadium where UH dreams evaporate.

For the 10th time in as many games in Provo, the Rainbow Warriors came away empty. This time, the Cougars controlled the line, the tempo and eventually the Warriors.

“It’s obviously a sucky thing to lose, especially to one of our big rivals,” UH quarterback Cole McDonald said.

The Warriors, who fell to 6-2, needed a victory to qualify for an automatic berth in the Dec. 22 Hawaii Bowl.

“The bowl game doesn’t matter,” running back Dayton Furuta said. “It’s more for the state of Hawaii. Hawaii has never won (a football game) in Provo before. We felt this was the team to do it. But BYU came out with a better game plan than us. They executed better. Definitely, we had some slip-ups (on offense), and we put the defense in some bad situations.”

The Cougars entered having lost six of nine home games dating to last season. With offensive hiccups in this season’s first six games, they opted to hand the offense to Zach Wilson, who was the seventh true freshman to start at quarterback in the program’s history.

Wilson completed 16 of 24 passes for 194 yards and three touchdowns. He was intercepted once and sacked three times, but he also extended plays with Houdini-like elusiveness.

The Cougars used pre-snap motions and jet sweeps to create uncertainty. But that was a shell tactic disguising a power offense. Behind an offensive line that averaged 6-5 1/2 and 302 pounds per blocker, the Cougars amassed 280 yards on 60 carries.

The Cougars were without ailing running back Squally Canada. But four Cougars, led by Matt Hadley, each rushed for a touchdown. Hadley is a 25-year-old who was granted a sixth year of eligibility after suffering a broken kneecap in 2017. He rushed for 91 yards, averaging 10.1 yards per carry.

“They were physical up front,” UH defensive coordinator Corey Batoon said. “We didn’t do a good enough job of stopping the run. And they controlled the tempo of the game most of the night.”

In the first half, the Cougars averaged 7.8 yards per first-down play.

“They were winning first and second down,” Batoon said. “By establishing the run game, the play-action game comes off of that.”

And when the Warriors were in the right defensive spot, they sometimes missed on would-be tackles.

“They did a nice job at the point of attack,” Batoon said. “They did a nice job against some of our movements. And we didn’t tackle well tonight. Those are the things you can’t do. We have to create more negative plays, and get some stops. I thought we had some stops at times, but overall not really the type of game we wanted to be playing.”

The Warriors were in good health. McDonald, who did not play the previous week because of an undisclosed illness, said he was physically fit.

But the Warriors struggled to find an offensive rhythm from the outset. On their opening drive, they faced a fourth-and-2 from their 48. But they were penalized for a false start, retreating the line of scrimmage 5 yards, and forcing a punt. Their second drive was sabotaged by a sack, and their possession failed to produce a first down. The Warriors’ seven first-half possessions resulted in four punts, an interception, a fourth-down shortage and Ryan Meskell’s 33-yard field goal.

The Cougars, who scored only seven first-quarter points in the first six games, built a 14-0 lead in the first 14 minutes on Lopini Katoa’s 12-yard run and Wilson’s 23-yard draw.

“No. 1, I thought BYU played very hard,” Rolovich said. “They played a good football game. I didn’t think we executed very well. Offensively, I think I made some poor decisions as far as putting the defense in some bad spots early in the first half. We couldn’t run the ball in the first half, which made the throwing lanes a lot harder. It made things a lot tighter.”

In previous games, the Cougars aligned defensively with a four-man front, with 6-foot-9, 275-pound Corbin Kaufusi rotating at both ends. But on Saturday, the Cougars went mostly with a three-man line, with linebackers flexed to each side. On several plays, Kaufusi set up as a middle linebacker who was able to attack the running lanes with his quickness and provide a visual obstacle with his long reach. Kaufusi, who played two seasons on the BYU basketball team, had a team-high eight tackles, including two sacks.

“They had a good scheme, something we didn’t expect,” McDonald said, noting the edge defenders could bracket the running lanes or drop back into coverage. “It was something we struggled with and took us a long time to adjust to.”

The Warriors, who trailed 28-3 at the intermission, cut the deficit on Dayton Furuta’s 1-yard run, the first of his two touchdowns. The Cougars were forced to punt on the ensuing drive, but regained possession when the Warriors lost the ball on a fumble return. The Cougars then drove 35 yards for a touchdown to extend their lead to 35-10 with 6:39 left in the third quarter.

“BYU had a good game plan,” Furuta said. “They’ve got a lot of big dudes up front. Just getting movement was hard. I guess it’s back to the drawing board.”