Nehari Crawford, Duquesne’s All-Northeast Conference wide receiver, was at the top of the Hawaii scouting report for good reason.

He might’ve been the one player who had real potential to make things interesting in the Rainbow Warriors’ homecoming matchup with the FCS-classified Dukes. But after allowing a couple of early scores, the UH defense buckled down on Crawford and the visitors in general in a 42-21 win on Saturday night at Aloha Stadium.

“I think they played outstanding,” UH coach Nick Rolovich said. “If you can hold any team to (166) yards total offense for four quarters, you’re doing a lot of things right. I thought we stopped the run really well. No. 1 (Crawford) is an incredible player. We saw the influence he can have on football games. But, our defense, they held us in this game.”

After UH went down 14-0 just seven minutes in, causing the stadium to murmur, Duquesne was held scoreless until 6:11 remained in the game, during which time the Warriors had put up 35 straight points.

Crawford entered the game as the reigning NEC offensive player of the week. He had a career game against Dayton — 11 catches for 223 yards and two touchdowns.

Against UH, the 2,000-career-yard man was held to five catches for 29 yards and a score, plus three carries for a team-high 17 rushing yards.

His 6-yard touchdown reception from Daniel Parr staked the Dukes to a 7-0 lead after moderate success hurling it deep.

“They came out taking shots, and got some PI calls,” Rolovich said. “They tried to get the run game going and it didn’t really go, so (deep balls) were there. They wanted to get the ball in No. 1’s hands, and No. 5 (Kellon Taylor, four catches, 66 yards, TD) made some plays for them, too.”

But the opportunities for the Dukes’ top option were largely denied back from there.

Fittingly, Crawford was dropped by cornerback Zach Wilson for a loss of 1 on his final reception.

“Just had to realize what they’re doing when they’re releasing, find out what I gotta do,” Wilson said. “I know my coaches are always harping on ‘top shoulder.’ I was just trying to find my man on my top shoulder, staying on top. I knew they (were) going to (take a) shot early with No. 1, we watched that all week. So, as soon as I knew I had 1, ‘shot play,’ they’re about to come deep with it. I knew it was going to happen before the play. We just prepared well.”

Safety Kalen Hicks said there was no panic or raised voices at halftime with UH leading only 21-14.

“Nah, we knew what we had to do. We knew how it should’ve played out,” Hicks said. “It took some unfortunate turns in the game, but we just had to play harder and come out on top, which we knew we were going to do.”

Wilson, a redshirt sophomore, also hauled in his second interception of the year on Duquesne backup quarterback Brett Brumbaugh in the third quarter.

“That pick was probably caused by the D-line making him get the ball out of his hands early, try to get it out of his hands before he got sacked,” Wilson said. “D-line went crazy, they had (three) sacks tonight. They did great tonight, honestly I gotta give it up to them as well.”