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For the first five games of the season we watched the University of Hawaii football team barely scratch the surface on its considerable potential.
But Saturday the Rainbow Warriors did a whole lot more, scratching Nevada from the unbeaten ranks, 24-21, with their most complete and inspired game of the campaign to date.
It took until the three-quarter mark of this truncated season, but under a brilliant nearly full moon over Halawa, the Warriors shown brightly, too. They neatly assembled most of the pieces in place, offense, defense and special teams, for the first time to square their record at 3-3 by handing the Wolf Pack their first loss in six games.
The victory snapped a two-game losing streak and kept alive the hopes for a winning season, if the Rainbow Warriors can win their final two games against San Jose State (4-0) and Nevada-Las Vegas (0-5).
If they reprise the performance that took down what had been the Mountain West Conference’s top team, you’d have to say that it is in the realm of possibility.
A jubilant UH coach Todd Graham termed the game a collective, “Giant step forward” for the Rainbow Warriors. Some of the biggest increments, 152 all-purpose yards of them, on this night belonged to the multi-dimensional wildcat/slotback/running back Calvin Turner, as is becoming his trademark.
>> PHOTOS: Hawaii upsets Nevada
Turner led both teams in receiving with 10 catches for 77 yards and a touchdown, ran twice for 28 yards and gave the Warriors their longest — and biggest — kickoff return of the season, a 47-yard bolt in the fourth quarter.
The return, which came after the Wolf Pack had cut the lead to 24-21 with 5 minutes and 38 seconds remaining, fueled the march to the Nevada 2-yard line, where Hawaii ran out the clock by taking a knee on three consecutive plays to secure the victory.
It was, perhaps, the only time all night that the Wolf Pack knew what to expect from quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, who had confidently and efficiently seized control of the game, time and again eluding desperate Wolf Pack defenders.
He darted through them on scrambles and picked out receivers on crucial third-down plays (UH converted on nine of 14), all the while keeping alive a streak of 162 consecutive plays without a UH turnover.
Cordeiro completed 26 of 32 passes for 246 yards and a touchdown and got plenty of help from his receivers with some can-you-top-this acrobatic catches from Jared Smart and Melquise Stovall.
Meanwhile, the defense put the clamps on Romeo Doubs, the nation’s leader in receiving yards, and kept largely in check the No. 4 passing offense (363.8 yards per game) while withstanding the ground onslaught that the Wolf Pack pinned its game plan hopes on. “Every time they ran the ball we thought that was a good thing,” Graham said.
Doubs, who had been averaging 155.6 yards per game, had one catch for 10 yards and that didn’t come until the second half, while Nevada’s power running game broke loose for just two gains of 20 yards or more.
“We’re still not close to our potential,” Graham said afterward.
Maybe not, but at least for one night you finally got a sense of what it might look like when they do get there. And, that it might not be all that far off.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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