Ferd Lewis: Warriors need to find their mojo before it’s too late

A little-noted but nevertheless highly telling anniversary passed quietly on Tuesday.

It was the eighth anniversary of the last time a University of Hawaii football team clinched a winning regular season.

Microfilm tells us that quarterback Bryant Moniz passed for 360 yards in a 45-7 victory over then-Western Athletic Conference opponent Idaho in front of more than 35,000 fans at Aloha Stadium in 2010.

There would have undoubtedly been more of a homecoming turnout and celebration had folks, then in the midst of eight winning regular seasons in 10 years, known that it would be the last winning season until …

Well, right now, who knows.

You’d like to think, after the roar of a 6-1 start into early October, that it would be this season, if not this night. But the Rainbow Warriors have to start reassembling the pieces sooner rather than later.

It is a span that stands, entering tonight’s game with Utah State, as the longest such drought in UH’s NCAA Division I history. It covers three head coaches, three athletic directors and a whole lot of frustration.

Beginning with the Aggies, UH (6-4, 3-2 Mountain West) has but three games left this season in which to rectify the situation.

By most accounts, including odds that have the Rainbow Warriors a 19-point underdog on the vegasinsider.com consensus betting line, tonight’s game against the 18th-ranked Aggies stands as the most challenging of the three.

The Mountain Division-leading Aggies (7-1, 4-0) are no worse than the second-best team on UH’s 13-game schedule, standing right there, almost shoulder pad to shoulder pad, with last week’s conqueror, 20th-ranked Fresno State (7-1, 4-0), the West Division leader.

The Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls have Utah State ahead of Fresno State, but the College Football Playoff rankings have the opposite.

What isn’t in doubt is that the Rainbow Warriors figured to need their best game of the season to best either of them. And last week’s 50-20 blowout in the San Joaquin Valley sure wasn’t it.

We are left to wonder when it might come. Fact is you hope UH’s best effort this season wasn’t left back in August against Colorado State or September against Navy or Rice and that the lost mojo can be rediscovered before another shot at a winning season gets away from the ’Bows.

Pretty much all the same pieces, except for injured all-conference linebacker Jahlani Tavai, are still there. It is just that they haven’t been reassembled on the same night for any sustainable length of time in more than a month.

And that is the task for UH tonight, a successful voyage of rediscovery — ideally, of course, one that results in the Warriors’ first upset of a nationally ranked team since knocking off 19th-ranked Nevada and quarterback Colin Kaepernick 27-21 in 2010 and securing bowl eligibility.

But what Hawaii really must do — and shouldn’t leave Aloha Stadium tonight without doing — is regain some of the lost rhythm, production and, yes, swagger the Warriors enjoyed earlier.

Win or lose tonight, they need to take into next week’s open date and the Nov. 17 final regular-season home game against Nevada-Las Vegas something more than just a fourth consecutive defeat.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.