Takeaways from Hawaii’s 45-38 win over Arizona

Gotta take care of the ball

The first takeaway will be about what else? Takeaways.

Or, depending on your perspective, giveaways.

In his postgame press conference, one of the first things Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich mentioned was the good fortune of winning a game in which his team lost the ball six times.

“You really shouldn’t win a football game when you turn the ball over that much,” he said. “That’s why you gotta give a lot of credit to the defense.”

But the most crucial turnover was one of the three committed by Arizona. Ikem Okeke jumped in front of a Khalil Tate pass at the UH 3, grabbed it and sped all the way to the Wildcats 48 with 7:32 left.

It set up Chevan Cordeiro’s 30-yard touchdown pass to Cedric Byrd, giving UH a 45-35 lead with 3:53 left.

Were you not entertained?

It was far from technically perfect, but this was one of UH’s most exciting games from start to dramatic finish.

And it’s the biggest win of Rolovich’s three-plus seasons as head coach.

It featured 1,134 yards of offense — but that just made the big defensive plays that much bigger. The first thrilling play in the game was on defense, as nickelback Kai Kaneshiro executed a perfectly timed leaping dive to intercept Khalil Tate’s pass that was tipped by Ro Farris.

>> Click here to see photos of the game between Hawaii and Arizona.

And the goal-line stop of Tate at the 1 as the game ended by Manly “Pumba” Williams and Kalen Hicks made this an instant classic. It’s reminiscent of Pisa Tinoisamoa’s crunching of BYU’s Brandon Doman at the goal line in 2001. But that was at halftime of a game UH ended up winning 72-45. This was at the end of the game, to win it, like Ryan Mouton’s interception against Washington in ’07.

But mostly this was the Cedric Byrd show. His 14 catches for 224 yards and four touchdowns will be a major part of the talk of college football nationally for the next couple of days, since there was only one other game today. Byrd is the Week Zero Hero.

McDonald and Cordeiro

When Cole McDonald throws the ball, it rarely lands on the ground. He completed 29 passes to his own guys — and four more to Arizona defenders.

“Every time Cole McDonald throws a pass, the football gods flip a coin,” somebody on Reddit.com wrote. That was the best line of the day. Well, other than Byrd’s stat line.

Rolovich was asked about switching to Cordeiro as the third quarter ended.

“Four picks,” he said. “Chevan’s completely capable of leading this team. The team believes in both quarterbacks.”

Punt? What’s a punt?

Dick Tomey used to say something about preserving the right to punt on fourth down. Rolovich’s philosophy is more like preserving the right to go for it. UH converted its first two tries on fourth down — and after the second one, a 7-yard completion from McDonald to Byrd, Hawaii immediately went deep for JoJo Ward, and the 39-yard TD put the Warriors up 14-0.

But on fourth-and-10 at the Arizona 39 in the third quarter, McDonald’s pass was picked off by cornerback Jace Whittaker.

When UH finally did punt, it was with 51 seconds left, and Stan Gaudion’s 39-yard kick had Arizona starting its final drive on its own 16.

It’s about points, not yards

Hawaii allowed 539 yards. But it did not yield the only 1 that mattered at the end.

Rolovich was pleased with the defense’s effort — especially getting off the field on eight of Arizona’s 11 third downs — and said that using plenty of players kept it fresh against Arizona’s hurry-up offense.

“Did they play perfect? No,” Rolovich said. But they were great on third down.”