Loss to UNLV was the start of Hawaii’s downhill slide

Isn’t this where it all started to unravel for the University of Hawaii football team?

The Warriors face Nevada-Las Vegas on Saturday at Aloha Stadium, and a lot has happened since that last fateful meeting, the Sept. 17, 2011, debacle in the desert.

You could make a case for the 40-20 loss being a tipping point in the Warriors’ decline to their current depths. For sure, it is where the page was turned on perceptions of the program by the public and administration.

Entering their game at Sam Boyd Stadium, the Warriors were 20-point favorites and had gone 15-6 over two seasons, including the 2010 Western Athletic Conference championship, and were favored to repeat.

Since bumbling through the loss to the Rebels, however, the Warriors have gone 6-14 and two of those victories (UC Davis and Lamar) were to Football Championship Subdivision teams.

The UNLV game first exposed the growing gaps in recruiting and mounting frailties of the program, deficiencies further underlined in subsequent losses on the way to a 6-7 (3-4 WAC) finish.

The way that loss at UNLV unfolded was also the beginning of the end for the tenure of then-head coach Greg McMackin. It boldly reaffirmed questions about his stewardship, as the vast majority of the 12,000 or so UH fans among a crowd of 21,248 on hand that night returned to the casinos early.

Many of them — and those watching at home — never went back to Aloha Stadium, where attendance began dropping precipitously.

Worse yet for McMackin, UH President M.R.C. Greenwood and several prominent members of the Board of Regents were in the crowd that night, some of them turned away from outgoing Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw’s stadium box.

And, talk about further bad timing, it all unfolded  three days before McMackin’s representatives were scheduled to talk with UH officials about a possible contract extension. Talks that were put on hold and never resumed as McMackin was eventually pressured to negotiate a buy-out of the final year of his contract.

It also deepened divisions between the administration and athletic director Jim Donovan, who had been, at Hinshaw’s behest, pushing a multi-year extension for McMackin.

In the intervening 14 months, much has changed at UH: coaches, athletic directors, offenses and even conferences.

But not the Warriors’ fortunes.

Though here are two season-ending games you’d think the Warriors should be able to compete in and win. UNLV is 2-10 and South Alabama, just up from the FCS, is 2-9.

The Warriors (0-7 in the Mountain West Conference), won’t escape the conference cellar, but this is an opportunity to avoid an 0-for-the MWC inaugural season and end an eight-game losing streak.

And, who knows, maybe, just maybe, with a good off-season recruiting crop, even begin to turn things around.

After all, if there is one thing UH should know, it is that UNLV games can be pivotal.

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