Warriors out of luck

RENO, Nev. >> Like many visitors to this gambling city, the University of Hawaii football team exited empty-handed.

There were no messages of fighting the good fight, no moral to another horror story, no words to ease the disappointment.

The Rainbow Warriors lost a 17-0 lead, lost their cool and, for the fifth Saturday in a row, lost a game — this time 30-20 to Nevada before a homecoming crowd of 19,992 at Mackay Stadium.

The Warriors, who fell to 2-6 overall and 0-4 in the Mountain West Conference, need to win their remaining five regular-season games to avoid a fifth consecutive losing year … and worse.

Outside the locker room following the game, coach Norm Chow vowed to keep pushing, declaring: "I’ve never quit anything in my life."

Stlll, Chow struggled to explain how the Warriors managed to scramble a game that appeared to be easy-over after the first 28 minutes.

Quarterback Max Wittek, who missed the previous week’s game against New Mexico because of knee issues, threw scoring passes of 29 and 9 yards to second-year freshman Devan Stubblefield. Place-kicker Rigo Sanchez, who hooked a key 22-yard attempt against New Mexico, boomed a 50-yarder to open the scoring. And the UH defense whipped Nevada’s pistol offense, produced its first interception since the season opener, and made a key fourth-down stop in Warrior territory.

But then momentum, according to offensive coordinator Don Bailey, "dried up."

The Pack had struggled to find running lanes against the "cinco" defense, a five-linebacker scheme in which two were aligned as ends and three set up about 5 yards from the line of scrimmage. But thanks to quarterback Tyler Stewart’s scrambling and play-action passes to tight end Jarred Gipson, the Pack was able to open the way for running backs James Butler and Don Jackson.

Butler capped a 10-play drive with an apparent high jump into the end zone, closing the Pack to 17-7 with 1:12 left before the intermission. Although television replays showed Butler landed short of the goal line, the initial call — a touchdown — was upheld on appeal.

On the point-after attempt, UH’s Jerrol Garcia-Williams soared for the block. On his follow through, Garcia-Williams inadvertently struck short-snapper Wes Farnsworth, drawing a 15-yard personal foul. A week earlier, a New Mexico kick-blocker was not penalized for falling on UH snapper Brodie Nakama during Sanchez’s failed 22-yarder. Chow kept protesting that if a penalty was not called the previous week, it should not be called on Saturday. The referee’s response was to slap an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on Chow. The two penalties meant the Pack would kick off from the Warriors’ 35.

"It never happened to me before," Nevada’s Brent Zuzo said of teeing up at the 35. "That was weird. That was a special situation."

The Pack aligned in a formation weighted to the left when UH called a timeout. Then Zuzo drag-kicked the football to the middle. Zuzo raced down to recover his own onside kick at the UH 23. Four plays later, Zuzo’s 40-yard field goal neared the Pack to 17-10 at the intermission.

"When they got the unsportsmanlike on the PAT and moved the ball up to the 50," Nevada coach Brian Polian said, "we were going to pooch-kick the ball, hopefully land it right on the goal line, and try to tackle them inside the 20. We lined up and were ready to do it. Then play got stopped, and coach Chow got the penalty. So now we’re kicking off from their 35. We were going to go onside kick. Then we actually kicked the ball but they called a timeout. We decided to go ahead and middle-dribble it. It was an unbelievable kick and recovery by Brent."

Zuzo said: "I practice it every now and then, but it came in handy today."

The mood swing energized the Pack’s running attack. After rushing 24 times for 76 yards in the first two quarters, an average of 3.17 yards per carry, the Pack gained 168 yards on 32 second-half rushes, an average of 5.25 yards per carry. Butler rushed for 81 yards after the intermission, finishing with 134 yards and two touchdowns.

"It’s because of the Union," Butler said, bending his arms to form a U. "That’s the name of my O-line."

When the Warriors loaded the tackle box, Stewart would scramble or push-pass throws to Gipson. Even when the Warriors appeared to trap a running back, Butler or Jackson would spin and churn for extra yards.

"They have good running backs with good vision," linebacker Julian Gener said. "They did a good job of staying alive every play. They made sure they were scrambling, putting their heads down, and spinning off tackles. That’s what gave them extra yardage."

Defensive coordinator Tom Mason said: "We had some guys who got impatient, and didn’t play assignment football, and that quarterback is good enough running the ball he can hurt you with that a little bit."

The Warriors also dropped two potential interceptions.

The offense, meanwhile, had difficulty rushing (34 yards on 24 carries), protecting Wittek (five sacks, including four by end Ian Seau), and converting on third down (2-for-9).

"We weren’t pushing (defenders) off the ball like we had been," Bailey said.

The Warriors gained 156 yards in the second half, including two yards on rushes.

"The game’s for 60 minutes, not 30, right?" Bailey said. "You’ve got to be able to finish. We talked about that all week. The score doesn’t matter, whether you’re up or down at the half, you have to keep playing."

After squandering second-half leads the past two weeks, Mason said, "I’ll go to my grave believing we should have won both these ball games. These are winnable games. We don’t do the things to win right now. Things are getting away from us. We can’t let that happen. We’ve got to believe, and we have to do things to win games. We have to keep fighting forward. We’re in a funk right now."

FIRST PERIOD

HAWAII

>> Score: Rigo Sanchez 50-yard field goal. 

>> Drive: 4 plays, 3 yards, 2:15 elapsed time. Time: 6:12. Score: UH 3, Nevada 0

SECOND PERIOD

HAWAII

>> Score: Devan Stubblefield 29-yard pass from Max Wittek. Sanchez kick. 

>> Drive: 2 plays, 43 yards, 0:26 elapsed time. Time: 13:12. Score: UH 10, Nevada 0

HAWAII

>> Score: Stubblefield 9-yard pass from Wittek. Sanchez kick. 

>> Drive: 10 plays, 73 yards, 4:19 elapsed time. Time: 5:24. Score: UH 17, Nevada 0

NEVADA

>> Score: James Butler 1-yard run. Brent Zuzo kick. 

>> Drive: 9 plays, 52 yards, 4:05 elapsed time. Time: 1:12. Score: UH 17, Nevada 7

NEVADA

>> Score: Zuzo 40-yard field goal. 

>> Drive: 4 plays, 0 yards, 0:18 elapsed time. Time: 0:53. Score: UH 17, Nevada 10

THIRD PERIOD

NEVADA

>> Score: Zuzo 29-yard field goal.

>> Drive: 9 plays, 60 yards, 3:32 elapsed time. Time: 7:43. Score: UH 17, Nevada 13

HAWAII

>> Score: Sanchez 47-yard field goal.

>> Drive: 10 plays, 46 yards, 3:02 elapsed time. Time: 4:41. Score: UH 20, Nevada 13

FOURTH PERIOD

NEVADA

>> Score: Jarred Gipson 5-yard pass from Tyler Stewart. Zuzo kick. 

>> Drive: 12 plays, 75 yards, 5:39 elapsed time. Time: 14:02. Score: UH 20, Nevada 20

NEVADA

>> Score: Zuzo 30-yard field goal. 

>> Drive: 7 plays, 25 yards, 3:56 elapsed time. Time: 9:01. Score: Nevada 23, UH 20

NEVADA

>> Score: Butler 1-yard run. Zuzo kick.

>> Drive: 4 plays, 21 yards, 1:33 elapsed time. Time: 2:20. Score: Nevada 30, UH 20

TEAM STATISTICS

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

DEFENSIVE STATISTICS