All you need to know about this game and, indeed, this University of Hawaii football season, was summed up in the final three plays Saturday night.

In the shadow of the goal posts, backup Brigham Young quarterback Jake Heaps took a knee three times, beginning at the UH 5-yard line, until the final 1 minute, 36 seconds mercifully expired on a 41-20 Cougars victory.

History tells us UH-BYU games are supposed to end with high drama, not mercy. We want them fought to a Vince Lombardi-like bitter end, not concluded according to the tenets of Emily Post. BYU — once known as "Beat You Unmercifully" in its old Western Athletic Conference days — taking pity is more painful than any blowout.

Especially at Aloha Stadium, where, amid the signage that implores "Protect This House," UH yielded a season-high 41 points at home, 31 unanswered points at one juncture.

The return of BYU was supposed to stir the echoes and rekindle the frenzy of the storied series and UH lettermen from 20 and 30 years ago lined the way from the tunnel to the field for the Warriors.

Billed as "Rivalry Renewed," this game instead served as the latest reminder of how far the program has fallen and how change has to be made at the top. Not just for the sake of the record but, as a meager gathering of 30,765 suggested, for the financial well-being of the entire 19-sport athletic program. Only in the Fred vonAppen years (1996-98) has Aloha Stadium been as barren for a BYU encounter.

With the season, one that had started with the Warriors as preseason favorites to win the WAC, now over and bowl-less, the administration is now on the clock. It has been a month since the 35-31 come-from-ahead loss to Utah State on the same field that stamped this as a season spiraled down the drain and should have inspired a plan for action.

It has been 2 1/2 months since the Debacle in the Desert, the 40-20 loss at Nevada-Las Vegas that prompted the Board of Regents to table any notion of head coach Greg McMackin getting a contract extension, and the time to punt is long since over.

We’re told the next move — and it isn’t whether to change head coaches but to whom and how — rests in the hands of the so-called "management team" of many.

There is a Board of Regents component as well as UH President M.R.C. Greenwood and athletic director Jim Donovan. A lot of the same folks, apparently, who had hands in basketball coach Gib Arnold’s contract and the move to the Mountain West Conference.

The hope and, indeed, the necessity is that they now act swiftly and with vision. There were a group of prospective recruits at the game and they and others will want to know: Who is running things?

UH’s options include going outside and hiring a coach (anybody put in a call to Norm Chow or June Jones?) or staying in-house with associate head coach Rich Miano to fill out the final year of McMackin’s tenure.

Which path they take almost certainly comes down to money. A commodity UH lacks almost as much of as time. If the powers-that-be will loosen the purse strings, UH can go outside. If not, then the choice is on staff.

As the seconds ticked down on the season Saturday night, an angry red sun set over the Waianae Range and on a disappointing season that demands change sooner than later.

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