Hawaii quarterback Sean Schroeder had two reminders of Saturday’s 49-10 loss to top-ranked Southern California: a painless red blotch on his forehead and a bitter aftertaste.

The redness was cosmetic. He reported only minor body aches from the season opener. The bitterness of the defeat, it is hoped, will serve as motivation for Schroeder and his Warriors teammates.

"I told them after the game: ‘I want you to remember how this feels,’ " UH coach Norm Chow said. "We don’t want to have it happen again."

On the 5-hour flight from Los Angeles on Sunday, Chow and his assistant coaches studied videos of the game. They graded each play and each player.

The coaches reviewed the videos in their offices that night.

"The whole thing we preached is we didn’t want to look up at the scoreboard," Chow said. "We wanted to keep playing and keep playing. I thought we did that."

He added: "It didn’t take away from the losing, that sick feeling that you have in your stomach."

Chow said he wanted the offense to have long drives. That occurred in the third quarter.

But the Warriors failed at limiting the Trojans’ big plays. On the first snap, USC quarterback Matt Barkley tossed a hitch pass to Marqise Lee, who juked a UH cornerback before racing to the end zone to complete a 75-yard scoring play.

The Warriors also relinquished touchdowns on two fourth-down plays, and gave up an end-zone-to-end-zone kickoff return.

"We didn’t want to give up explosives, and that’s what we did," Chow said. "It didn’t make for a very smooth first half."

But Chow said there were some bright spots.

He noted that defensive end Marcus Malepeai "ran a little twist at the line of scrimmage, then he ran 20 yards down the field to chase down a ballcarrier. I love to see that."

Chow also praised Schroeder, who kept battling after being repeatedly pressured.

"We learned about our offense, and we learned about Sean Schroeder and how tough he is," Chow said.

Schroeder is a Duke graduate who transferred to UH in July. It took three practices for Schroeder to win the quarterback competition.

"I knew he had something special about him," Chow said. "You could just tell. That’s part of it all. You just felt it. It took three days. It didn’t take long to make the decision. You knew he had that grittiness in him. I’m not going to tell you I’m that prophetic, but you could tell he was somebody special."

The Warriors will not practice today because of Labor Day. They resume workouts on Tuesday. At that time, the Warriors will work on open-field tackling and tightening the blocking schemes.

With a bye this weekend, there is still time to evaluate positions. As for any possible lineup changes, Chow said, "it’s way too early to think about that."