FORT COLLINS, COLO. >> With a thinning lead in the Rocky Mountain’s thin air, the University of Hawaii football team withstood Colorado State’s frenetic surge for a breathtaking 43-34 victory.
Defying the odds? The Rainbow Warriors entered as 14-point underdogs.
Improbable performances?
Cole McDonald, who began cramming for the resurrected run-and-shoot offense in February, threw for 418 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another 96 yards and two scores. Ryan Meskell, who converted only one of the Warriors’ four field goals last season, delivered three, including a 35-yarder with 44 seconds to play. And slotback John Ursua, whose availability was a prayer-time decision, manufactured 123 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Motivation? That came from Kalepo Naotala, who cheered his teammates from a wheelchair in Canvas Stadium. Naotala was a freshman defensive tackle when he suffered a spinal injury in July 2017.
“We did this for the state of Hawaii, and all that the people there have been going through,” said Ursua, who grew up on Hawaii island. “It didn’t matter how much people thought (CSU) would win by. They’re a great team. But we came together and we battled, and we did what was necessary.”
The housewarming for CSU’s on-campus stadium, which opened last year, ended when the Warriors constructed a 37-7 lead with 3:35 remaining in the third quarter. Many of the CSU students, whose fees help pay for Canvas’ maintenance, began to depart.
But then the Rams scored four touchdowns in a 27-3 run — with no drive lasting more than two minutes — to close to 40-34 with 4:42 to play.
In the ensuing UH huddle, running back Fred Holly reminded his teammates of his father’s advice.
“My dad always says, ‘Big players make big plays when it really matters,’ ” Holly said. “In the huddle, I told them, ‘Everything we did in the first half doesn’t matter. Even though we started out really well, we need to focus on this drive.’ ”
With McDonald at the controls, the Warriors siphoned the clock. At the end of a 21-yard run, Holly pirouetted to avoid going out of bounds. Ursua also went to the turf after a catch to keep the clocking moving. The Warriors advanced to the CSU 17, and Meskell was summoned for his third attempt of the night.
“I went out there, trusted the process, got a great snap from Noah (Borden), and a great hold from Stan (Gaudion), and great protection from the boys, and (the kick) went through the posts,” Meskell said. “So, happy days.”
It had been a pillow-punching night for McDonald, a third-year sophomore who was set to make his first NCAA start. A week earlier, McDonald was handed the key to the offense, winning a competition that started with seven quarterbacks. The position was vacated when Dru Brown, who had started 22 consecutive games, decided to transfer to Oklahoma State for his final season.
“I wanted it bad,” McDonald said of the starting job. “I wanted it last year, too.”
When told he would start in the 2018 opener, McDonald said, “they told me to keep it under wraps. I didn’t want to tell anybody. I wanted to show them.”
Last year, McDonald was used as a run-first quarterback on run-pass options. But he was a diligent student of the run-and-shoot offense, which was implemented in the spring. It was video studies and player-run practices that were helpful in two scoring passes in the third quarter.
With UH leading 23-7, the Warriors faced a second-and-3 from the CSU 19. Quarterbacks coach Craig Stutzmann had noticed a hole in a similar red-zone coverage earlier in the game. Ursua was instructed to run a quick-cutting corner route, a move slotback Davone Bess used to make 11 years ago. In a window as wide as a porthole, McDonald lasered a pass to Ursua in the right corner of the end zone.
“We watch film of Davone Bess and Ryan Grice-Mullen all the time,” Ursua said. “Those guys were dual threats. They could run corners, they could run by. Cole made a great throw.”
On the next UH possession, McDonald noticed there was a lone safety at the back of the defense. The videos showed that in such situations, if the safety shifted, it would provide speedy slotback Cedric Byrd with a straight track.
“We call it, ‘go deep,’ ” Byrd said.
McDonald lofted a pass that Byrd caught behind the coverage. Byrd sprinted the rest of the way for a 55-yard scoring play and a 37-7 UH lead.
“I was wishing he would put it out there, and he put it out there, and I got it,” said Byrd, who had 11 catches for 181 yards.
McDonald said: “We got the chance, and luckily Cedric made the catch. I couldn’t be more thankful.”
Head coach Nick Rolovich, who called UH’s offensive plays, dusted off some of the essentials: shovel passes against aggressive pass rushes, bubble screens behind a wall of blockers, and draws and pulls utilizing Holly’s quickness (68 rushing yards) and Dayton Furuta’s power (5.0 yards per carry).
The Warriors also used some elements of the run-pass option. Both of McDonald’s scoring runs — from 12 and 6 yards — came on counter plays.
“We tried to take advantage of mismatches,” McDonald said.
UH defensive coordinator Corey Batoon said it was a “game of two halves.”
Batoon said UH’s pass rushers played to exhaustion. “We had a couple of our pass rushers in full-body cramps at the end of the game,” Batoon said. “They left it all out on the field, which was great. But we have to learn to close people out. When explosive plays happened, we didn’t respond the way we needed to. That’s where we’re at now. We’re going to continue to work on those situations.”
For now, the Warriors are pleased to be atop the Mountain West. In a preseason poll, they were predicted to finish fifth in the six-team West Division.
“There were a lot of doubters out there,” Holly said. “But inside our locker room, we have a lot of trust and belief. We believe in each other.”
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GAME STATISTICS
FIRST QUARTER
HAWAII
>> John Ursua 4 pass from Cole McDonald. Ryan Meskell kick
>> Drive: 10 plays, 75 yards, 4:58 elapsed time.
>> Time: 10:02.
>> Score: UH 7, CSU 0
COLORADO STATE
>> Olabisi Johnson 10 pass from K.J. Carta-Samuels. Wyatt Bryan kick.
>> Drive: 14 plays, 85 yards, 4:26 elapsed time.
>> Time: 5:26
>> Score: CSU 7, UH 7
HAWAII
>> Field goal Meskell 21
>> Drive: 9 plays, 72 yards, 4:08 elapsed time.
>> Time: 1:18
>> Score: UH 10, CSU 7
SECOND QUARTER
HAWAII
>> McDonald 12 run. Stan Gaudion pass failed.
>> Drive: 9 plays, 67 yards, 3:53 elapsed time.
>> Time: 11:32
>> Score: UH 16, CSU 7
HAWAII
>> McDonald 6 run. Meskell kick.
>> Drive: 6 plays, 46 yards, 1:43 elapsed time.
>> Time: :28
>> Score: UH 23, CSU 7
THIRD QUARTER
HAWAII
>> Ursua 19 pass from McDonald. Meskell kick
>> Drive: 7 plays, 75 yards, 3:34 elapsed time.
>> Time: 8:48.
>> Score: UH 30, CSU 7
HAWAII
>> Cedric Byrd 55 pass from McDonald. Meskell kick
>> Drive: 3 plays, 70 yards, 1:24 elapsed time.
>> Time: 3:35.
>> Score: UH 37, CSU 7
COLORADO STATE
>> Preston Williams 7 pass from Carta-Samuels. Bryan kick.
>> Drive: 3 plays, 75 yards, 1:15 elapsed time.
>> Time: 2:20
>> Score: UH 37, CSU 14
COLORADO STATE
>> Johnson 58 pass from Carta-Samuels. Carta-Samuels pass failed.
>> Drive: 2 plays, 72 yards, :24 elapsed time.
>> Time: :08
>> Score: UH 37, CSU 20
FOURTH QUARTER
COLORADO STATE
>> Williams 26 pass from Carta-Samuels. Bryan kick.
>> Drive: 4 plays, 99 yards, 1:06 elapsed time.
>> Time: 8:15
>> Score: UH 37, CSU 27
HAWAII
>> Field goal Meskell 30
>> Drive: 5 plays, 63 yards, 1:33 elapsed time.
>> Time: 6:42
>> Score: UH 40, CSU 27
COLORADO STATE
>> Izzy Matthews 9 pass from Carta-Samuels. Bryan kick.
>> Drive: 8 plays, 75 yards, 2:00 elapsed time.
>> Time: 4:42
>> Score: UH 40, CSU 34
HAWAII
>> Field goal Meskell 35
>> Drive: 9 plays, 58 yards, 3:58 elapsed time.
>> Time: :44
>> Score: UH 43, CSU 34
TEAM STATISTICS
UH | CSU
>> First downs: 30 | 29
>> Rushes-yards: 36-199 | 25-116
>> Passing: 418 | 537
>> Comp-Att-Int: 26-37-0 | 34-51-1
>> Return Yards: 48 | 119
>> Punts-Avg.: 3-47.66 | 4-37.75
>> Fumbles-Lost: 1-1 | 1-0
>> Penalties-Yards: 10-65 | 12-120
>> Time of Possession: 34:43 | 25:17
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Hawaii: C.McDonald 13-96, Holly 16-68, Furuta 7-35. Colorado State: Matthews 15-63, McElroy 4-28, Carta-Samuels 6-25.
PASSING — Hawaii: C.McDonald 26-37-0-418. Colorado State: Carta-Samuels 34-50-1-537, (Team) 0-1-0-0.
RECEIVING — Hawaii: Byrd 11-181, Ursua 7-123, Holly 2-38, Armstrong-Brown 2-34, Furuta 2-22, Sharsh 1-12, Ward 1-8. Colorado State: P.Williams 9-188, O.Johnson 6-157, Matthews 6-58, W.Jackson 5-72, Butler 5-26, Hammer 2-19, Fulton 1-17.
MISSED FIELD GOALS — Colorado State: Bryan 45, Bryan 48.
LEADING TACKLERS (solo-assist—total) — Hawaii: Solomon Matautia 6-4—10, Ikem Okeke 7-1—8. Colorado State: Josh Watson 3-10—13, Jordan Fogal 4-8—12.
