The Hawaii football team learned one of the most difficult stages of development is the "Terrible Toos."

Too many missed tackles.

Too many missed opportunities.

And in Saturday’s 69-24 loss to Nevada, too much Stefphon Jefferson.

Jefferson, a junior running back, tied an NCAA record with seven touchdowns — six on rushes and one on a swing pass that went for 55 yards.

If this were a game of chasemaster, Jefferson would not be It. Instead, he had that "It’ quality, running skinny through the narrowest of openings, slipping tackles and, sometimes, just outsprinting defenders.

"He’s a strong guy and he does run low," UH defensive end Beau Yap said of the 5-foot-11, 210-pound Jefferson. "We can’t arm-tackle him. We had to wrap him up. I know he broke a couple of my arm tackles. He’s just a great running back."

Jefferson had a workmanlike 31 carries for 170 yards, with none of his scoring runs exceeding 5 yards.

In the process, he seized the national lead in rushing with 174.8 yards per game.

"We had a tough time stopping him, didn’t we?" said UH coach Norm Chow, whose Warriors fell to 1-2 following their inaugural Mountain West Conference game.

Jefferson said he did not expect it be an out-of-the-ordinary day when he arose in his Turtle Bay hotel room.

"I woke up, said my prayers, and it was on," Jefferson said.

He said he then distributed snacks to his offensive linemen.

"They’re my brothers," said Jefferson, who provided candy, beef jerkey and chips.

For the Wolf Pack, it had been mostly famine in Hawaii, where they had not won since 1948, including the past six to the Warriors at Aloha Stadium.

"We had to come out here and win," Jefferson said. "We hadn’t won in Hawaii in a while."

Nevada went three and out on its first possession before its pistol offense began to click. In the zone-read pistol, quarterback Cody Fajardo is 4 yards from the line of scrimmage, with Jefferson 3 yards directly behind Fajardo.

The scheme is essentially keepaway. Fajardo can hand off to Jefferson on dives or sweeps, scamper on designed runs, or make play-action throws to one of four receivers.

With the defensive tackles holding the middle, the defensive ends are in the do-or-yikes dilemma of keying on Fajardo or Jefferson.

"Sometimes, personally, I would be overthinking too much and I would miss my own tackle," Yap said. "They would break it on us when we were overthinking."

Still, the Warriors remained in contention, with tight end Ryan Hall making his first career touchdown catch and receiver Miah Ostrowski grabbing a 36-yard scoring pass to cut the deficit to 20-17 with 8:37 remaining in the second quarter.

"And then," Chow said, "hell broke loose."

The Pack produced 42 unanswered points to set a UH opponent’s scoring record at Aloha Stadium.

During that surge, Jefferson rushed for four scores, tight end Zach Sudfeld caught an 8-yard touchdown pass from Fajardo, and cornerback Khalid Wooten, who was burned on Ostrowski’s touchdown, intercepted Schroeder and ran 78 yards the other way.

"He made a play," Schroeder said of Wooten. "We run that play a lot. He adjusted to it, jumped it, and I made a bad throw, and he took it to the house."

The Warriors’ offense had an uneven performance. There were five drops, including two in the end zone, and in each of the first three drives, they faced third-and-12 situations. Their longest rush was Bubba Poueu-Luna’s scamper on a fake punt.

"We just didn’t make enough plays — plain and simple," said Schroeder, who was 22-for-40 for 234 yards. He was intercepted twice and sacked four times. "I have to throw better balls and make sure I’m more accurate."

But the Warriors’ problems were collective — and many were caused by Nevada’s pistol.

Nevada used double-team blocks to collapse the tackle box, creating shorter paths to the perimeter for Jefferson.

"(Jefferson) is awfully elusive," UH defensive coordinator Thom Kaumeyer said. "We tried to keep the edge from him. A lot of his explosive plays were getting on the edge and outrunning people."

Kaumeyer said the Warriors needed to adjust their "aim points." Often Jefferson would run toward a targeted area, then cut outside.

Nevada offensive tackle Jeff Nady said: "We controlled the front. We executed our game plan pretty well. That’s what we wanted to do. We knew it was going to be a physical Hawaii defense, like they always are. We just wanted to make sure we came out and were physical back."

Nady said he was not surprised by the output.

"We always expect that when we come out and play as a team," he said. "We believe if our offense is executing without penalties and turnovers, we can score this many points. Obviously, we had help with the defense in scoring, and we had a great punt return. We definitely expect to score a touchdown every time we get the ball."

The Warriors, who were without running back Joey Iosefa (sprained ankle) and nose tackle Moses Samia (torn ACL), will have little recovery time. They face Brigham Young in a road game on Friday.

"We have to forget this game as quick as possible," UH cornerback Mike Edwards said. "We want to remember this feeling, and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But we have to move on."