UH showed it can compete, but is it ready to win?

Two years ago, a college football team won a road game.

The score was 16-14, improving its record to 5-3.

The opponent wasn’t very good. You could look at it as an ugly road victory but many fans chose to just see it as plain-old ugly, and part of a disturbing trend. And maybe they were right: After that, the team lost four of its last five games and the coach was forced to retire.

By now you may have figured out we’re talking about the University of Hawaii and its game at Idaho in 2011.

While the tipping point was the home loss the next week to Utah State, the red flag came the week before, when just winning on the road wasn’t enough for many fans.

Now it’s the opposite, where a home defeat last week that included a beautiful second half could be the turning point for Norm Chow’s UH head coaching tenure. In the right direction.

But those 34 consecutive points at the end of the 42-37 loss to Fresno State last week will mean very little if 0-4 Hawaii doesn’t win Saturday against a wounded 1-3 San Jose State team.

The Rainbow Warriors have reason for confidence and hope now — and they will probably draw a pretty good-sized and enthusiastic home crowd at Aloha Stadium. But to win they need to play like winners from the outset and not fritter away the hard-earned equity.

"It was bound to happen," linebacker Brenden Daley said of last week’s explosion. "It all came together in Week 4 instead of Week 1."

It wasn’t quite enough, but "all" is correct in the sense of a well-rounded effort. Sean Schroeder’s incredible relief work coming in from the bullpen at quarterback got most of the attention, but every position group contributed heavily to what was nearly the biggest comeback in FBS history.

"We rely on the defense to make turnovers and they rely on us to score, and we all rely on the special teams for field position," running back Steven Lakalaka said. "What we did in the second half is what we have to do the whole game. If we do that and keep our penalties and turnovers down the wins will fall into place."

As for the quarterback controversy spawned by Schroeder’s performance and Chow’s statement that, if healthy, Taylor Graham remains the starter, Lakalaka said it doesn’t matter.

"Whoever starts, we’ve got their back 100 percent. If we feed him confidence, he’s going to give us confidence. What we’ve got to do is work as a team and execute," the running back said.

Fresno State moved up two spots in the Associated Press poll to No. 23 after escaping Aloha Stadium with its undefeated record intact. My guess is most voters turned in their ballots at halftime and went beddy-bye. The Bulldogs don’t belong in the rankings right now — still, the Rainbows dominated what might be the best team in their conference for the better part of a half.

After last week’s game, we know this youthful UH team can play exciting football and can compete.

Now let’s see if it is ready to win.

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Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783 or on Twitter as @dave_reardon.