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The visitors were the hosts, simple was complicated and, for 3 hours, 17 minutes in a rare matinee at Aloha Stadium, the Hawaii football team’s world was flat.
The Rainbow Warriors appeared to be decaffeinated — missing assignments they usually ace — in a perplexing 35-24 loss to San Jose State on Saturday. The Spartans are atop the Mountain West at 5-0. The Warriors are 3-4 in an abbreviated eight-week season that concludes next Saturday against UNLV.
“We had no energy level,” UH coach Todd Graham said, adding, “it was a very disappointing football game. We did a poor job of getting the guys ready.”
On Saturday, Graham turned 56. The game’s first nine minutes turned his stomach. The Spartans scored on their first three possessions to seize a 21-0 lead.
The Warriors’ first three drives netted 14 yards and three punts.
“It nauseates me that we give someone 21 points, (that) we’re down 21 points,” Graham said.
Then again, circumstances leading to the 1 p.m. kickoff were unprecedented. Santa Clara County’s coronavirus-related restrictions forced the game to relocate from San Jose. On Friday, a UH player received a positive test result. But contact tracing showed he did not pose an exposure risk to teammates, and the game was allowed to be played. The Spartans, whose two previous games were canceled, maintained the home-team status and wore blue jerseys.
The Spartans also concocted a strategy that played off their image as a prolific-passing offense. Nick Starkel is a self-styled gunslinger with 70% accuracy. Receivers Tre Walker and Bailey Gaither are dual blurs.
“In our meetings, we saw that Hawaii played great pass defense (the previous week) against a great passing team, Nevada,” Starkel said. “We saw they played a version of Tampa-2 with three down linemen and a safety looking right into the quarterback’s eyes. So we lined up in a formation you usually pass out of and ran the ball.”
Out of a four-receiver set, the Spartans called for counters in which running paths were cleared by gap blocks. Five rushes set up Starkel’s 2-yard toss to Isaiah Holiness for a 7-0 lead. Then Tyler Nevens, on a counter run to the left, went 72 yards for the first of his two touchdowns. On the 72-yarder, defenders were dropping into coverage based on the formation and not reading the run keys. The Spartans rushed for 288 yards, averaging 6.3 yards per carry.
“We just never stopped the run,” Graham said. “We let them run the ball over us. Simple running plays. Nothing complex. They run a counter play, three by one, that we played — oh, I don’t know how many times over and over and over — and it goes all the way to the house.”
The Warriors chipped away in the middle quarters, scoring 17 unanswered points to close to 21-17 with 9:48 to play in the third quarter. Chevan Cordeiro, who was zip-for-four in the first quarter, was 28 of 38 for 238 yards after that.
But then Kairee Robinson scored on a 2-yard run to cap an 18-play drive, and Walker transformed a catch across the middle into a 50-yard sprint to the end zone to balloon the Spartans’ advantage to 35-17 with 12:03 to play.
Walker’s touchdown came on a third-and-10 play in which the defensive order was to interrupt his crossing pattern.
“We’re blitzing,” Graham said. “We have a person designated to cut the cross, and we don’t cut the cross. Critical errors. Four or five critical errors resulted in three or four touchdowns.”
Even the Warriors’ last-ditch effort could not lift them from the hole. Cordeiro’s 4-yard scramble cut the deficit to 35-24 with 2:24 to go. It appeared the Warriors recovered the ensuing on-side kick. But the officials voided the play because of an illegal-formation ruling. In setting up the on-side kick, the Warriors overloaded the left side, then motioned some of players to the right to create a mismatch. But one too many had shifted, leaving the Warriors without the four-player quorum on the left side. “A guy gets over-zealous,” Graham said. “That’s just frustrating.”
>> PHOTOS: San Jose State beats Hawaii
The Warriors also burned their final two timeouts in the third quarter, leaving none for the final 15 minutes, because they had too many (12) players and then too few (10) on defense. “Those timeouts should not have happened,” Graham said. “Those are unforced errors.”
The Warriors did have their moments. Isaiah Tufaga, who started in place of ailing linebacker Jeremiah Pritchard, had five tackles. Defensive lineman Jonah La‘ulu fought off an ailment to play about 20 snaps. Derek Thomas moved from H-back to the defensive line to build depth. And Koali Nishigaya, a 5-foot-8, 165-pound freshman from Saint Louis School, caught a 26-yard pass.
But the few bright spots, and the Warriors’ late rally, could not mask Graham’s disappointment in the slow start.
“We dug ourselves a hole we couldn’t get out of,” Graham said. “That’s what I told them. It’s great to fight back and to come back and all that, but we shouldn’t have been in that situation.”
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