Ferd Lewis: Hawaii’s postseason countdown stalls with tough road ahead

Two weeks ago, with a 6-1 record, when the countdown began in earnest, bowl eligibility seemed only a matter of time for the University of Hawaii football team.

Days, not months.

Now, you have to wonder if the four remaining games of the regular season are cushion enough.

That bowl-clinching seventh victory of a 13-game season suddenly looked as elusive as the footballs the Rainbow Warriors kept dropping and, now, the route to the postseason seems as difficult to navigate as the mis-throws and mis-reads that they stumbled through in a dispiriting 40-22 loss to Nevada.

On a night when the hardy remnants of an Aloha Stadium crowd of 22,272 filed out shaking their heads, it was left to wide receiver John Ursua to signal the urgency of the situation facing UH.

“We have to step it up a whole another notch because this season can turn, drastically, from right now, if we don’t turn it up,” Ursua said.

If the clock is ticking on opportunities for the Warriors (6-3, 3-1 Mountain West Conference) to break a streak of seven years without a winning season, then the remaining schedule is even less encouraging.

The finishing gauntlet looks like this: Saturday at Fresno State (6-1), then Utah State (6-1), Nevada-Las Vegas (2-5) and at San Diego State (6-1).

For a UH team that has yet to beat a fellow Football Bowl Subdivision opponent with a winning record, that is not comforting.

Neither is the still-up-in-the-air status of all-conference linebacker Jahlani Tavai, who left the game in the first half with an apparent shoulder injury and did not return. Asked if Tavai might be available for Fresno State, coach Nick Rolovich said, “I don’t know.”

That merely added injury to insult.

“We knew they (the Wolf Pack) were a good football team that could score and they deserve a lot of credit, but I think that this is a game that we lost,” Rolovich said.

Indeed it would be hard to imagine UH losing at home when its opponent commits all three turnovers of the game, if not for the ways that UH made it possible and what Rolovich termed “pretty awful execution.”

UH committed seven penalties for 73 yards, dropped five passes, converted on just three of 15 third-down attempts, one of five fourth- down tries and none of three onside kick attempts and yielded five sacks.

As a result, UH spent most of the 3-hour, 14-minute game seeking some semblance of offensive rhythm and put an over-worked defense in a hole while the largely fruitless search continued.

For its part, the defense was unable to come to terms with Nevada’s “wildcat” or the Wolf Pack running backs who averaged 6.1 yards per carry for the night.

Rolovich even went to the bullpen, calling on freshman quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, but the ’Bows could offer him no better protection than starter Cole McDonald — who was 19-for-37 for 259 yards with three touchdowns and four sacks — was afforded.

Asked if the ’Bows were capable of pulling out of the tailspin, Ursua said, “Yes, absolutely. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t win another game. It is just taking it one day at a time.”

If Saturday’s game is any indication, that time might be running out.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.