Boise State amassed a season-high 603 yards total offense Saturday, an average of 8.9 yards, nearly a first down per play.
The Broncos so crisply executed four touchdown passes that, however painfully, even Hawaii fans had to marvel at them.
But on a day when the Rainbow Warriors were unable to do much to slow down the nation’s 24th-ranked team or threaten the Broncos offensively with anything more than kicker Rigo Sanchez’s foot and Paul Harris’ legs in a 52-16 beatdown, they were mostly at a loss to explain what is happening to them and their once-promising season.
“That’s not the football team I envisioned,” head coach Nick Rolovich said solemnly after another long day on national TV. “And, that’s not the one I knew a month ago.”
The hardy remnants of an announced 18,286, the smallest gathering of the season even with a sizable Boise blue contingent, no doubt left Aloha Stadium pondering the same thing.
What little momentum UH once had has been halted cold by a three-game losing streak that leaves the ’Bows 4-7 (3-4 Mountain West), assuring a school-record sixth consecutive losing regular season with two games left.
Three weeks ago, amid the untethered optimism inspired by the upset victory at Air Force, you’d have rated the final two Bottom Ten opponents on the regular-season schedule, Fresno State (now 1-9) and Massachusetts (2-8), as gimmes.
Now, well, “the way we are playing we can’t take anybody lightly,” Rolovich said. “We’ve got to come out and play much better than we did for this last month.”
Maybe you can point a finger at the accumulated travel, six trips and nearly 40,000 miles to date. But does that result in four dropped passes, including one of wide-open touchdown potential, in the first 12 passes?
There is something to be said for the level of competition these past two weeks, Mountain West powers San Diego State (9-1) and Boise State (9-1), of course. But the Broncos had little to do with substitution errors and mindless penalties.
Late in the third quarter and driving for a touchdown, UH took a timeout. Then it took a three-yard loss followed by a delay of game penalty and ended up settling for one of Sanchez’s three field goals.
“That comes down to execution and preparation and that’s on us, the coaches and players,” Rolovich said.
That, and an afternoon malaise that apparently overtook a segment of the players, was on the ’Bows.
Rolovich became so irate that at halftime that he ordered UH’s benches removed from the sidelines for the second half.
So, the ’Bows stood.
“There were two handfuls of guys, a couple dozen guys sitting on the benches in the shade, while we were playing, like they were siting in a cabana,” Rolovich fumed well after the game.
Meanwhile, the Broncos, who started the game on the “sun” side of the field for the 2 p.m. kickoff, were disciplined and on their game.
“And in a game where everything is on the line we’ve got guys with no energy and think they need to sit down and watch the game on the jumbotron. Well, they can go into the locker room if they want to sit down,” Rolovich said. “I’m not gonna have that in a game like that. We needed everything we had against these guys (Broncos). That was just a bad look, I thought.”
And, that’s the “look” of a team regressing.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
