Brown comes up big as Hawaii defeats San Jose State
TONY AVELAR / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER
Hawaii quarterback Dru Brown handed off to running back Diocemy Saint Juste in today’s game against the San Jose State in San Jose, Calif.
This was one of those football games that says a lot about which direction a program is headed. After a big win over Nevada last weekend, the University of Hawaii needed to follow it up with an equally impressive performance Saturday on the road against San Jose State.
And that’s exactly what the Rainbow Warriors did en route to a 34-17 victory at rather warm CEFCU Stadium, their first Mountain West Conference road win in two years. Hawaii is now 3-3 for the season and 2-0 in league play. San Jose State fell to 1-5 overall and 0-2 in conference action.
>> Stephen Tsai’s Warrior Beat blog
Hawaii quarterback Dru Brown had a big game, completing 23 of 32 passes for 280 yards and two touchdowns. He also scored on a 62-yard run on a huge fourth-and-1 call that gave the Warriors the momentum they would need to win.
Up by seven to start the fourth quarter, Hawaii finally scored its first touchdown of the second half on a 29-yard run by fullback Steven Lakalaka. On a critical fourth-and-1, the San Jose State defense was called for delay of game, giving UH a huge first down. The Warriors scored on the next play and Rigo Sanchez hit the PAT to make it 31-17 Hawaii with 12:53 left in the game. The drive was four plays for 50 yards and was set up by the UH secondary’s third pick of the game.
Later in the quarter, Sanchez hit a 35-yard field goal to extend the advantage to 17 points with 7:04 left in the game. No one scored for the remainder of the period.
Mistakes plagued Hawaii in the third quarter as San Jose State cut UH’s halftime advantage to 24-17.
Neither team did much in the opening half of the period. Hawaii didn’t get a first down on its opening two series, leading to the Spartans having the football at their own 42 to begin their second offensive set of the third quarter. Hawaii forced a three-and-out.
Paul Harris came in for the first time and picked up Hawaii’s first first down with a 14-yard run. But two plays later, Brown lost the football on a scramble and it was a scoop and score for San Jose State to cut the lead to 24-17 with 4:16 left after Bryce Crawford added the PAT.
Another Warriors turnover, this time by Ammon Barker, on the ensuing offensive series gave the Spartans the ball at their own 31. Barker, who scored a touchdown earlier in the game but was also called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for celebration, caught the Brown pass on the wide receiver screen, then lost the football on the tackle.
Fortunately for the Warriors, the UH defense held, forcing a 50-yard field-goal attempt by Crawford that was blocked. The Warriors took over at their own 33, dodging a big bullet.
There was plenty of scoring from start to finish in the second period as Hawaii took a 24-10 advantage into halftime.
The Spartans scored on the first play of the period on an 8-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Kenny Potter to talented wideout Justin Holmes. Crawford added the PAT to give San Jose State a 10-3 advantage just three seconds into the period.
The scoring drive went 12 plays and was extended by a huge third-and-15 completion early on from Potter to tight end Billy Freeman that took the Spartans from their own 10 to the 40 for 30 yards. A roughing-the-quarterback penalty allowed another third-down conversion as the Spartans took advantage of UH mistakes.
Hawaii needed only five plays to draw even. Brown suddenly got a hot hand, completing four passes for 75 yards, including the 24-yard scoring strike to Dylan Collie. Sanchez added the PAT to make it 10-10 with 12:46 left. Brown also had a 32-yard completion to Marcus Kemp that set up the scoring play.
Later in the quarter, Hawaii took a huge risk on a stunning fourth-and-1 call on which Brown faked the straight handoff to Lakalaka and went 62 yards around the right corner on a naked bootleg to take the lead for the first time at 17-10 with 8:20 remaining. Sanchez made the PAT.
The Hawaii defense came up with a couple of picks to slow down the San Jose State offense for the remainder of the quarter, giving the offense a chance to score right before half. And that’s just what Brown and Co. did, going 77 yards on only five plays. The final one was a 39-yard scoring pass from Brown to Barker to make it 24-10 UH after Sanchez converted the PAT with 26 seconds remaining. In the first half, Brown hit 15 of 21 for 228 yards and two scores. He also had 56 yards rushing and another score to key the UH attack.
The teams traded field goals in the opening period, which saw a lot of yards gained but not many points scored.
San Jose State took the opening drive and moved all the way to the Hawaii 2, where the Spartans faced a third-and-1. Hawaii stuffed that play for no gain, leading to a chip-shot field goal of 20 yards by Harper to give San Jose State a 3-0 advantage with 9:59 left in the quarter.
The Spartans needed only nine plays to go 86 yards, leaving Hawaii fans wondering where that suddenly resurgent defense went that found itself in the 38-17 win over Nevada. The Spartans gained all their yards on the ground.
Hawaii had an equally impressive opening drive of its own, moving quickly to a first-and-goal from the 10 on the arm of Brown. The drive ended at the 7, leading to a 24-yard field goal by Sanchez to tie the game 3-3 with 5:07 left in the period.
70 responses to “Brown comes up big as Hawaii defeats San Jose State”
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Haka or ha’s, it really doesn’t matter if you can’t win – just makes you look foolish.
ha’a, not ha’s.
ha’a to the credibility of San Jose State. We still need to beat good teams on the road to be taken seriously.
We?
allie wouldn’t know a good sports team from a mediocre one; allie criticized Ganot’s hiring which demonstrates how much he/she knows
Please do not use the word “we” when referring to UH.
Shame ON YOU, Allie is just as much a fan as anyone of us!!!!
Allie”s a troll
UH won’t be playing many “good” teams on the road this year or any year in our conference. But UH sure will be taken seriously by conference opponents and that’s good enough for most of us. It’s all relative.
Right, at this point we just need to win, doesn’t matter the opponent. After a few winning seasons and some bowl games then we can get better recruits and start to be concerned about beating better competition.
Well we did win.
Ha’a
Go Bows! Make the tackles and hang onto the ball. You can win it!
Rolo! What you tink, we can play and compete with the San Diego Chargers now with this road win? hahahahahahahaha. Let’s Go Bows! Let’s Go Bows! Let’s Go Bows!
come on sa its 17-10, Hawaii leads keep up.
change the headlines 24-10 Hawaii at the half. come on sa.
Relax … it takes time for the write-up.
Good one!
if you’re looking for frequent updates on the game you can watch the ppv, listen to the radio broadcast or follow the play-by-play on yahoo sports. cholo is sure there are other options too. star advertiser usually does quarterly recaps at best.
Yea …Go Bows!
Shucks, just came home from the beach, thought the game was later! Go Bows!
Hold on to the lead. Put more, better yet. Go ‘Bows…
31-17 4th quarter
UH wins at 1355 hrs.!
Alright! Enthusiasm is what was needed. Hopefully this win streak will raise attendance.
get ready for the allie comment.
All road wins are good wins. Nice going Warriors, need to clean up the penalties and turnovers but a lot of things to be happy about.
Changed QBs, and what do you know…offense.
Amazing what happened once we got rid of Chow the loser. Go Warriors and Great job coaches !
Already tied with Chow last year with 3 wins already and with UMass, nothing amiss, UH should get 4 wins+.
Now I hope you back off all your yapping about how bad the defense is.
Defense still needs improvement, if not for the two fortunate turnovers to them in the first half, could’ve been a different game. And a lot, a very lot, would like someone to stop yapping and take their meds on time.
Of course they need continued improvement, just like offense, special teams, and your ability to comprehend.
If not for the 2 fortunate turnovers? Who cause the turnovers? The wind?
The wind that blows out of his ……or the wind that blows through his ears through the empty space?
When we got rid of Chow and then eventually benched Ikaika Woosley. Woosley was a remnant of Chow’s failure.
That’s BS! Woolsey wasn’t even a Chow recruit. Most of the players this year are Chow’s recruits so there are no remnants of failure as far as players go. I may have been one of Woolsey’s harshest critics but I wish he’s part of the success story unfolding for the year and gets to go out on a high with every other seniors this year. People like you love to jump on the band wagon after it starts rolling than yap about things you know nothing about. Hope your yapping is backed up by buying tickets to the games.
Lol. You’re pathetic. You don’t even know me. I’ve been following UH football since I discovered football when I was a kid. I used to watch them at every home game. But I can’t because I don’t live in Hawaii anymore. But I still follow them and rep them. I still watch them on TV… so don’t assume I’m jumping in the band wagon. Don’t assume I don’t nothing about anything. I’d suffered watching them during Chow’s era. Like I said, you don’t know me… so eat it!!!
jr, doesn’t matter how long you’ve been watching football, what matters is your ignoramous generization about “remnant of failure”. No decent fan calls a player a remnant no matter how good or bad you feel that player is, only disgusting airheads like Trump.
TROLL: is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion,often for their own amusement.
Hey Pacific, you really know how to describe yourself perfectly. Should I list the examples of your incessant backing of crooked Fib Arnold and denigrating of Ganot as examples? How about your constant mischaracterization of UH football defense?
Give Woosley a break. He had to relearn a ineffective offense at least twice, This aint his time but he did his best and that all we should ask,
Before IW was changed by Dru, I mentioned the reason why his passes were hard for the receivers to catch and the reaction to his reads.
Regarding his passes, it is thrown more on a line with some zip behind them, not having an arch on his throws makes it that much harder for the receivers to adjust to make a catch and thus leaving little margin for error. He also had a double pump (hitch) many times which was probably due to his reaction to his reads as well as his confidence level of completing the pass due to his velocity and trajectory.
Dru on the other hand has a quick release and anticipates well and with the ball having more arch to it allowing the receivers a chance to adjust to the throw and of course less zip behind his passes making it easier to catch.
Dru Brown has locked up the QB position.
yes but he has to take better care of the ball.
Congratulations to the team for a well deserved win. The offense is starting to get exciting again and welcome back our hard hitting defense. The team just needs to continue to get better each and every week. One win at at time and back to the bowl again.
Happy flight home!
Offense scores 34 on the road in spite of sloppy play, untimely penalties, and run game being shut down early on. Play a clean game and they score a lot more. Now the team knows they can compete with anyone in the conference. They also know they still are ways from playing their best. They’re at a really good place mentally and physically right now – kudos to the players and the coaches. Please get to the stadium on Saturday and support this team (yes, it’s really a team now after four years in the wilderness).
WOW;, WAIT TILL WE PLAY GOOD!!
Why are you calling it a “period” instead of a quarter? This is football. Period is weird.
Nice! Go Bows!
Great team effort on offense as several receivers and running backs contributed along with good pass/run protection by the O-line–integral to Brown’s success at QB. What a difference back-to-back wins have made! 3-3 overall and 2-0 in conference play. Go Warriors!!!
Great win for UH however the score does not reflect how close the game was. Lots of mistakes by UH but luckily things went their way.
They may not be as fortunate the next game. Lots of things need improvement or this win may be the last for the remainder of the season. Hope not.
It’s not luck when you can win fairly convincingly in spite of lot of miscues.
Credit to Athletic Director Matlin. He selected a head coach based on character rather than track record.
Papakolea are you trying to say something? Good one for the impatient souls. JJ is nay nay.
It’s a good sign when UH can win despite penalties at the wrong time. I think San Jose St. felt they were getting all the ref calls. So, they tried to trick UH into an offside. But, they got caught. And then on the next play, Lakalaka took it to the house. Game Over!
UH now playing exciting brand of football! Great for us fans.
great win Bows! Keep winning and the fans will return in droves! As well as more highly-rated recruits
Great win! Bring back the dark green helmets…they were one of the best in all football.
No money in the budget to get new helmets or uniforms for this season. The white helmets was a decision before Rolo took over. Rolo said next season.
Nice win for UH. Underdogs and on the road and a convincing win at San Jose State. 3-3, and 2-0 in the conference. The team is starting to believe which is good. Anyone who expected instantaneous success is plain stupid. UH faced 3 Power 5 conference teams, 1 from the top 5 and the other a top 30–all on the road. Traveled 25,000 miles, 20,000 miles more than the power 5 conference schools had to travel, no bye weeks until after the tough games. We are right where we expected 6 games in. They have 3 very tough games ahead, 2 on the road. @Air Force (#35), @SDSU (#36), and at home hosting Boise State (#19). Oh, look, Michigan routed Rutgers 78-0 and had 600 total yards to 39. I guess Hawaii did better against Michigan than Rutgers who is a Big Ten conference member. It does take time to rebuild. Go Bows!
Yes please bring back the green helmets!
I kinda like the white helmets. Like the old white helmets during the 70s and 80s
Yeeeaaahhh !!! It’s a WIN…..Consecutive conference wins with this on the road. Dru Brown has brought back the excitement. And the defense is showing up. Next up is UNLV at home. Should be a good game, so come on out to the game at Aloha Stadium. Go Warriors!!!
All aboard the Sunshine Express. A win is a win. Good game.
We all knew Chow was a bad Disease and finally we got that Monkey off our back. Go Warriors, GREAT GAME !!
Yeah, CHOW was a BAD DISEASE. Every time someone mentions his name , my blood boils.
Chow Fun noodles for everyone.
While Hawaii has made a sharp pivot towards good fortune with their QB position change, UNLV, Hawaii’s next opponent has been sinking fast since a knee injury suffered by their starter–Johnny Stanton in a double overtime loss to Idaho on September 24th. He is out for at least 3 weeks and hoping he can rehab his knee and avoid season ending surgery. Stanton a JUCO all American transfer from Saddleback was replaced by frosh Dalton Snead and his passing has been terrible. Against the Aztecs Snead could only manage two completions for 9 yards. Dru Brown, on the other hand leads the conference with a 76% completion rate.
Snead, like Brown is a capable runner and against Fresno State, despite being trapped, he broke out of the pocket in his end zone and scooted the century-distance for a record scoring TD. Hawaii needs to stop the RUN. Period!