Fresno State’s Cesar Silva kicked the winning field goal, a 37-yarder, on the game’s final play late Saturday night, but it is the University of Hawaii football team that should be kicking itself today.
Silva just put the finishing kick on a 41-38 defeat that never should have come down to that bitter ending in Halawa.
Not when the Rainbow Warriors led 24-14 at halftime. Not when UH mustered 555 yards of total offense, the most in a losing cause since 2013.
The Warriors have had more lopsided losses this season, but certainly none more painful than this one, their third in the last four games and fourth overall defeat against five victories.
>> Click here to see photos of the game between Hawaii and Fresno State.
It is a loss, their third in five Mountain West Conference games, that has taken them out of the running for the West Division title and, in the process, made their run to bowl eligibility more difficult after what had been a 4-1 start to the season. Now, UH must win two of its remaining four games in order to assure bowl eligibility.
It is not a daunting task — unless they play the way they did in much of the second half Saturday night. That’s where they completed just 11 of 26 passes, committed six penalties for 55 yards and yielded 174 yards rushing at an average of 7.9 yards per carry.
In the past four games, UH has surrendered 187 points. They held on against down-and-out New Mexico, 45-31, last week in Albuquerque, but it has cost UH against the three teams that mattered — Boise State, Air Force and, now, Fresno State.
Not even one of backup quarterback Chevan Cordeiro’s trademark comebacks could salvage the day this time. Cordeiro came off the bench to rally Hawaii past Nevada-Las Vegas and lead a late comeback against Wyoming last year and helped pull off the season-opening victory over Arizona in relief this year.
He was summoned on third-and-10 with 8 minutes, 38 seconds remaining Saturday and UH down 38-24.
His entry into the game quickly turned a shower of boos from the remnants of a gathering of 17,583 into applause and caused the exiting fans to pause on the concourse to see if he could bring a spark to an offense that had been scoreless in the second half after lighting up the scoreboard with 24 second-quarter points.
In time, on his second series, Cordeiro did not disappoint, leading the Warriors 63 yards to one score on a 3-yard Miles Reed touchdown, to close to 38-31. Then, after Darius Muasau recovered the onside kick, Cordeiro guided UH 49 yards for the tying points with a 10-yard pinball run of his own.
But the Warriors never got their hands on the Wilson model 1005 football again. Bulldogs quarterback Jorge Reyna took Fresno State 55 yards in 1 minute, 8 seconds, the last 13 on Ronnie Rivers’ bolt to the UH 20 yard line, to set up Silva’s game-winner.
In this, the Rivers family has become something of a familiar tormentor. Ronnie has 281 yards and three touchdowns in three games — all Bulldogs wins — in three seasons. It follows on the heels of his father, Ron, who ran for 107 yards in a 1993 win over UH.
That just added another layer to the Warriors’ most painful defeat of this spiraling season.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
