SAN DIEGO » Hawaii’s Will Gregory was the game-high rusher in San Diego State’s 52-14 victory over the visiting Warriors at Qualcomm Stadium on Saturday.

But the 6-foot, 190-pound second-year freshman knows the final score isn’t the only reason he can’t celebrate his 81 yards on 22 carries that included a touchdown.

There was a bad handoff exchange between quarterback Sean Schroeder and Gregory midway through the third quarter that the Aztecs recovered. While it was just one of many UH mistakes, it especially hurt the Warriors because it gave the Aztecs the momentum back after Hawaii had grabbed it after halftime.

After that turnover — the Warriors’ third of the game to none for SDSU — the Aztecs scored the final 17 points to win going away.

"No excuses, but they had sand on their field. I think it was the sand. I had sand on my forearm," Gregory said. "But I still don’t know what happened, (Schroeder doesn’t) know what happened. I got the ball back in the pile, but they still said it was San Diego’s ball."

Coach Norm Chow acknowledged that Gregory did well carrying the football Saturday, but added that he needs to improve in other areas.

"He does a nice job running the ball. But he’s got to learn to pick up blitzes," Chow said. "There’s more to playing running back than running the ball."

That part of the job, though, Gregory performed very well … especially in the Warriors’ scoring drive to open the second half.

At halftime, Chow said he told the team he was going to see how tough they were. Part of that meant moving the ball on the ground.

"He challenged us a lot, especially the O-line," said Gregory, who has been UH’s primary running back since sophomore starter Joey Iosefa was injured three games ago. "He said we were going to run the ball in the third quarter and that’s what we did."

Gregory covered 43 of the 78 yards on the drive, including the final 3 for the touchdown.

"We didn’t really make any adjustment," Gregory said. "We just knew what we had to do, we were just trying to go score and put some points on the board."

In addition to benefitting from good blocks at the line of scrimmage Gregory broke several tackles on 10-yard and 22-yard gains that fueled the drive.

"San Diego State was a hard-hitting team," said Gregory, who came close to matching his game-high 91 rushing yards against Nevada two weeks ago. "They had some good linebackers. I was just trying to keep my feet moving and get first downs."

Senior receiver and captain Miah Ostrowski said Gregory gave the Warriors a lift.

"That’s just him. He’s a great player," Ostrowski said. "He plays hard and that’s the mentality we have on this team."

Gregory leads Hawaii in rushing this season with 351 yards on 74 carries with two touchdowns.