Football coaches will invariably tell you the game comes down to blocking and tackling.

Judging from Saturday’s 41-36 win against Tennessee Martin, the University of Hawaii team is pretty good at the former and really bad at the latter.

After a balky start, the Rainbow Warriors got better at creating holes for the running backs and protected the quarterbacks well enough. For the game, UH averaged 4.7 yards per rush and yielded just one quarterback sack (for 2 yards).

But there’s a lot of work to do defensively. Scheme-wise, the Warriors were usually in the right places (one big exception being the touchdown pass where everyone in the world was off to the right, except for receiver CJ McElrath, all alone on the left side of the end zone).

Being in the right place and doing something with it are two distinct things, though, and for much of the game Skyhawk ballcarriers dodged or ran over Hawaii defenders.

There’s a lot of talk about offensive “identity” for this team. That won’t matter much if the defense doesn’t perform more like it did on just a few series Saturday, when it did overwhelm Tennessee Martin or at least held its ground. It helped UH that these were often predictable situations, such as the last series when UTM was running out of time and downs and faced with a long field. In that case, Hawaii had finally gotten to the quarterback — twice in a row — for sacks that effectively sealed the victory.

Earlier in the game UH was pushed around in embarrassing fashion and some guys are surely dreading the film sessions this week. The punt coverage team probably isn’t too excited about it either, not after missing tackles galore on a 79-yard return that gave UTM a fourth-quarter lead.

A big positive is that when the Skyhawks turned the ball over the Rainbow Warriors took full advantage. That included the first-half fumble recovery and second-half interception by linebacker Jahlani Tavai … UH recycled both into touchdowns, as it did the punt that bounced off a UTM player and ended up in Ammon Barker’s hands.

Any win is a good win when they’ve been in such short supply, and maybe coach Nick Rolovich is right when he says having to pull it out at the end will help the team more than a blowout would have.

One thing it did is help identify what needs to be worked on most.

People were saying Tennessee Martin is a “good team.” I think they have “good team” and “collection of talented players” mixed up. They’re not necessarily the same thing, even the Skyhawks coach acknowledged that.

“We’re talented but we’re not very efficient,” Jason Simpson said after Saturday’s game, in which his team turned the ball over four times.

UH’s next opponent, Arizona, lost to BYU in its opener, and without injured quarterback Anu Solomon, played an even worse first half Saturday against Grambling State than Hawaii did against Tennessee Martin. And the Wildcats came back, too, beating the Tigers 31-21 after trailing by 18 at halftime.

On Saturday, Hawaii and Arizona both showed how to finish a game. It will be interesting to see if either learned from seeing first hand how one should be started.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.