SAN DIEGO >> The first question after this kind of game is always the same.

Was the name-your-score blowout because Team A is really good, or Team B is really bad?

It’s almost always a sizable helping of both.

Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich says that his team isn’t 55-0 bad — or shouldn’t be — even though San Diego State is very good — 8-1 good — best team in the conference, by far, good.

He meant no disrespect to Aztecs coach Rocky Long and his stellar squad.

Yes, SDSU’s quality made the Rainbow Warriors (4-6, 3-3 Mountain West) look terrible, but UH’s self-inflicted wounds were rampant and they wouldn’t have beaten anyone with the level of their execution Saturday at Qualcomm Stadium.

The defense again spent the first quarter warming up, and the offense never did get into a groove.

Damontae Kazee got two of the four interceptions Hawaii quarterbacks threw, one for a pick-6 that made it 48-0 early in the fourth quarter. UH is actually lucky there weren’t more interceptions, as Dru Brown and Aaron Zwahlen threw passes into coverage throughout the game.

As great as Donnel Pumphrey is, the Aztecs’ real cornerstone is their defense — especially against the run. SDSU’s prowess against the ground game wasn’t a surprise, or it shouldn’t have been; it came into the game No. 2 in the FBS, yielding just 90.8 rushing yards per game.

Hawaii’s running backs most capable of long breakaway runs saw no action or very little. Diocemy Saint Juste didn’t play because of an injury, and Paul Harris didn’t get the ball until the fourth quarter, when it was too late. Maybe he was tired from all those kickoff returns.

So Steven Lakalaka was the running back for most of the game. UH fans love when he gets the ball — at the goal line. He’s a great short yardage back, and he plays a lot because he’s the team’s best blocking back.

That’s why he was in the game so much. Rolovich and offensive coordinator Brian Smith decided Lakalaka’s pass protection ability was the priority.

“They do a lot with pressure schemes,” Smith said of SDSU’s defense.

UH quarterbacks were sacked just twice, but still had a rough go of it dealing with Long’s 3-3-5 defense. And when Lakalaka got the ball, he netted 40 yards in 14 carries.

Hawaii’s passing game was plagued by mistakes large and small, including bad reads and drops, and its running game was nearly non-existent.

“I would say so, that with the three of us (playing significant roles at running back) we can be better,” Lakalaka said.

Although Hawaii was one-dimensional on offense and didn’t perform well at that one dimension, UH coaches and players credited SDSU as much as they blamed themselves.

“They did a lot of good things. They play hard and rally to the ball,” Brown said. “I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I don’t think we played anywhere near how we can play, from the beginning.”

The Rainbow Warriors bounced back from a similar trip to the woodshed at Michigan (63-3) to win at home the next week, and they won on the road at Air Force after a bitter close loss at home to UNLV.

But UH’s resilience is going to be tested even more severely Saturday at Aloha Stadium. Boise State isn’t as dominant as in past years, but we can all agree the Broncos are a notch or two above Tennessee Martin.

No one wants to deal with the are-they-that good-or-are-we-that-bad question again next week.

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