As anyone with siblings knows, when they beat you at something it stings the most.
You can talk about how you love them because you grew up together, were teammates, and you are their fan except for one week a season.
Hawaii’s 20-16 loss to San Jose State on Saturday was a true rivalry game, and one that leaves UH fans thinking about what could have been — especially when considering how many of the mistakes that decided it were self-inflicted.
Some of these coaches from both teams were brothers as UH (and Saint Louis School) teammates and alums before the whole braddahhood thing (which already existed, just not in name) was labeled as such at UH when Timmy Chang became the head coach.
San Jose State has now won the Dick Tomey Legacy Trophy six years in a row. That’s one more than the number of years Tomey coached the Spartans.
And somehow, that made this particular UH loss feel right and wrong at the same time.
Tomey would have appreciated some things about Saturday. He would have loved the first two series.
Both teams punted, and Hawaii was winning the field-position game. That was Tomey football — his mantra of “reserving the right to punt.”
He believed in disciplined, conservative play, avoiding unnecessary risks, tough defense, forcing mistakes and using special teams to his advantage.
So, a punt could be a great thing, a weapon.
Of course, Tomey would probably have wanted to reserve the right to punt a lot more than Hawaii did Saturday — especially instead of UH’s crucial turnovers.
But field position doesn’t matter as much as it used to. The objective now is to maximize every scoring opportunity because the other team is going to get plenty of chances, too.
As I’ve written before, the way football counts the red zone stat needs to change. It should be average points per visit to the foes’ goal post shadows, not total field goals and touchdowns. In today’s game, coming away with three points instead of seven is almost always a failure.
And Tomey probably would not have enjoyed watching Hawaii give away opportunities – penalties, turnovers and more penalties. And more missed opportunities in the red zone.
The last time Luke Weaver was at the Ching Complex he was a hero, throwing a touchdown pass for UH to win the Hawaii Bowl. And he performed the QB2 role to perfection throughout the season, bailing out the Warriors when Micah Alejado was injured and playing the role of good soldier otherwise. It’s hard to become beloved in one year, but by all accounts Weaver achieved that.
On Saturday, he was the anti-hero to most of the home crowd, after transferring to San Jose State. He followed the path of Chevan Cordeiro, a Hawaii standout QB who moved on to the Spartans. Cordeiro was 3-0 in games with the Tomey Legacy Trophy at stake – unfortunately for UH only the first was as a Rainbow Warrior, when he accounted for five touchdown in the Warriors’ 42-40 win in 2019.
But after he found the way to San Jose, Cordeiro led the Spartans to wins over the Warriors in 2022 and ‘23.
It was as if Weaver had never left on Saturday – like this was what he needed after a poor performance against Fresno State and then a bye.
There were other factors, of course. Hawaii was missing receivers Audric Harris, Carson Brown (most of the game) and Poufele Ashlock (what’s the real story with him? Will he be back at all?). Those absences mattered, even though Alejado found Devin Alves deep in some key spots.
But the mistakes piled up. There were three holding penalties in the second quarter alone.
There was another holding call on Hawaii’s final drive of the first half, just when the Warriors were getting something going.
Credit UH for coming out blazing after halftime, with Alejado immediately going long to Alves for 49 yards.
But right after that, two false starts, and a holding penalty to negate a gain. Suddenly that pass that covered half the field was a memory instead of a launching point and Hawaii settled for a field goal.
That sequence pretty much summoned up the game. Every time Hawaii appeared ready to make something happen, something bad happened to Hawaii, very often self-inflicted.
Against a team that has now beaten Hawaii six consecutive times for the trophy named after one of the most important coaches in both programs’ histories, there isn’t much room for that.
There was also the touchdown and the decision not to go for two that put the Warriors in a math situation that worsened as the gameclock wound down.
That’s the kind of decision that will be second-guessed, especially when you’re trailing throughout in a close game. Whether it’s fair or not, every decision gets judged by what happens afterward, even though the people making the decisions can’t predict the future.
But especially after the goal line follies in the Wyoming loss the previous week, Chang’s is under heavy scrutiny. Maybe he needs a guy with a chart following him around, like a lot of other coaches have.
But that was just one of many problems for Hawaii, which now, at 1-4, needs to recover and coalesce quickly to have a chance to make a bowl game.
There were too many moments that required the next play, the next drive, the next opportunity to fix the previous mistake. And there were too many good plays that were not capitalized on.
UH finally did get the momentum, but it ran out of time and it ran out of plays.
There is something fitting about a game for the Dick Tomey Legacy Trophy being decided by discipline.
Although Tomey spent considerably less time coaching at San Jose than Hawaii, the bond is strong because UH alumni and players from Hawaii abound on the Spartans staff.
Head coach Ken Niumatalolo learned the Tomey (and Bob Wagner) way while mostly a backup QB at UH, and it led to a long, successful run as the head coach at Navy for the Radford High product.
Niumatalolo, Brian Norwood and Craig and Billy Ray Stutzmann are all experienced and well-traveled coaches with firm roots in Hawaii. That makes for fierce local recruiting battles, too.
Tomey believed in minimizing mistakes and making the other team earn everything. For the second week in a row, Hawaii made things easier than they needed to be for the opponent.
And that’s even more dangerous when you’re playing San Jose State – with a coaching staff and roster of many players with whom you share not just football but cultural DNA and your unique, beloved home.
When Tomey talked about retaining the right to punt, his actual point – often missed – was actually much larger. What he really meant was “avoid screwing up.”
That’s why San Jose State gets to keep the trophy with his name on it for yet another year, and at 1-0 in the Mountain West can dream of big things.
And that’s why UH, at 1-4, will have to scramble to make it to the Hawaii Bowl after high hopes following 2025’s 9-4 season — a record which would not have been possible without a guy named Luke Walker.
