PROVO, Utah »"Eight, nine times, I think," punter Alex Dunnachie said, scratching his chin as if to stir his memory.
"Maybe 10 times?"
It is never a good thing when your punter is summoned so often that he has trouble remembering just how many times he has had to bail out the offense.
Officially it was eight times Friday night and it only seemed like a lot more in the University of Hawaii’s 47-0 nonconference thumping before 62,022 partisans at Brigham Young.
Talk about BYU blue — 12 times UH faced third-down situations and only once did the Warriors convert. Throw in going 0-for-2 on fourth-down tries and it made for another long night on national TV for the Warriors.
Mercifully, ESPN cut away briefly to show Cincinnati’s Homer Bailey finishing up a no-hitter against Pittsburgh. Then the network returned to a game that was ceasing to be one.
Again.
It isn’t just that the Warriors are 1-3 at this, the conclusion of the first third of their 12-game season. If you were realistic, that is about where they figured to be in this year of wholesale rebuilding and retooling.
But it is the depths that they are now plumbing weekly in getting there that make it disconcerting. In three losses against Football Bowl Subdivision opponents, UH has been outscored 165-34.
And history is being made the hard way. Last week, in a 69-24 loss to Nevada, UH suffered the worst home loss since 1950. This time the milestone was the Warriors’ first shutout since that cursed 0-12 season of 1998. That’s a string of 182 games that takes in a lot of ups and downs.
Coming into LaVell Edwards Stadium, a place they had yet to find victory in eight previous visits, and playing the No. 7 defense in the land, did not portend well for these Warriors. Nor did seeing two mainstays, Geordon Hanohano and Siasau Matagiese, of an already thin defensive line carted off on stretchers within 3 minutes, 40 seconds of each other. They also finished without their top offensive lineman, guard Dave Lefotu.
It wasn’t just who they missed but also what they missed. Call it a punch or spark, the Warriors seemed to be lacking one even before the stretchers came out. They missed tackles, mishandled balls and generally struggled to be competitive.
"This is the first when they weren’t working as hard as we thought they should work," Chow said. "They just seemed a little quieter, a little more subdued if you will. This is usually a high-energy group. They practiced all year like that and we didn’t have that tonight."
Chow has maintained each week, whether it be against the tradition of USC or the rivalry of BYU, that this is all about his team. A lot of that was designed to keep the Warriors focused on themselves. Never, however, has it been more true than now.
The Warriors have fallen — and tumbled hard — and need to figure out how to get back up and be competitive. There might not be many opportunities for victory these next few weeks, but you hope there aren’t more occasions for blowouts of historic proportion.
Chow said the Warriors will re-examine many facets, including how they travel.
"We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and work harder," Chow said. "Like I told the team, this is a big-boy business and nobody is feeling sorry for us. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves."
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
