Penalties, mistakes haunt UH in horror film

LARAMIE, Wyo. >>

Legi Suiaunoa spent the past two weeks binge-watching.

It’s not one of his favorite shows, oh no … far from it. But it had to be viewed, again and again.

The University of Hawaii’s first-year defensive coordinator had his assistants and the players repeatedly see the horror film, too.

“I hate to go back to UCLA, but that’s a good film for us to watch,” Suiaunoa said after UH’s practice at East Cheyenne High School on the eve of tonight’s Mountain West Conference football opener at Wyoming.

It was basically a Josh Rosen highlight film, as the Bruins quarterback directed drives that resulted in touchdown passes on UCLA’s first four possessions on the way to a 56-23 win.

The Hawaii defense looked like it was on its heels from the very start, and Rosen took advantage of that as he picked apart the Rainbow Warriors.

As head coach Nick Rolovich said in the brief halftime interview, UH didn’t get to the quarterback and it also didn’t cover the UCLA receivers well enough.

That’s not a good combination for a defense, and Suiaunoa knows it.

“We never eliminated the run, the play-action or the pass. When the offense gets all three going, it’s pretty hard for the defense,” he said. “We never got there in time, and we didn’t stay in coverages.”

In many cases, if a defense can make an offense one-dimensional it can dominate the game. Although the Warriors are going up against a quarterback who is also one of the most talented in the nation in Josh Allen, UH has a chance to do that tonight.

Allen’s supporting cast is nowhere near what Rosen has at UCLA.

And in three games, Allen’s stats are nowhere close to the pace of what he posted last season, when he passed for 28 touchdowns and rushed for seven more. He threw for 3,203 yards and ran for 523 in 2016.

He’s been better at not throwing interceptions than last year, when he had 15, but still has more picks (three) than TD passes (two).

Allen conceded earlier this week that he misses 6-foot-2 receiver Tanner Gentry, who is now on the Chicago Bears’ practice squad.

“It’s a little different. I’m not going to lie,” Allen said. “Tanner was a guy who’s going to go win a lot of the times when I throw the ball up. Without James (Price) and Austin Fort, we really don’t have a guy who’s tall and who can go get something.”

Price is a wide receiver and Fort a tight end who have been injured. They’re especially valuable when Allen is flushed from the pocket.

The Cowboys offensive line also will be shuffled and is young. In its 49-13 loss to Oregon last week, Wyoming generated a meager 183 yards, with Allen getting knocked around a lot. Wyoming went three-and-out three times early in the game.

Also, Wyoming was manhandled by Iowa 24-3 in the season opener three weeks ago in another game where Allen had little time to do anything. If not for a 27-0 decision over FCS school Gardner-Webb, the Cowboys would be winless and its offense deemed ineffective.

They’ve averaged only 80 yards rushing per game.

So — for many reasons — the Wyoming offense looks like easy pickin’s for the Hawaii defense … until we remember the beginning of this article, and how UH has spent much of the past two weeks reviewing the plenty it did wrong in being overwhelmed in its most recent game.

We can make excuses for Hawaii and Wyoming, that UCLA and Oregon are borderline Top 25 teams from the Pac-12.

But excuses are not what football coaches look for after losses — they look for reasons, and things they can fix.

“There was probably a little bit of (stage-fright), playing in the Rose Bowl. We never got comfortable enough to play our game,” Suiaunoa said. “But we banged on it a lot since the UCLA game that we all have to trust each other. And the technique wasn’t there.”

Assuming Allen, who is listed as probable, plays, the Rainbow Warriors will need to get to him early and often, and although Wyoming’s offensive line has its issues, it will have an advantage as the game wears on due to UH’s inexperience with the thin air of the high elevation here and lack of defensive line depth.

If they can give Allen enough time, he will be able to display the skills that had the NFL scouts drooling before this season started.

“They have one of the best quarterbacks we will ever see,” Hawaii defensive backs coach Abraham Elimimian said.

They just spent a lot of time seeing another one, and it wasn’t a pretty thing to watch. Let’s see what they learned from it.

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