In a game rife with tense situations — one more so than the rest — the Hawaii defense swears it wasn’t worried about a thing.
San Jose State had the ball at the UH half-yard line with the Rainbow Warriors clinging to an eight-point lead in the third quarter on Saturday night at Aloha Stadium. SJSU was 18 inches from drawing just about even.
But UH got the Spartans to commit consecutive penalties, pushing them back to the 20, and linebacker Jahlani Tavai came away with a tipped ball for a huge end-zone interception of SJSU quarterback Montel Aaron. It was one of a couple of defensive turning points in the ’Bows’ 37-26 win over the Spartans, a critical win that kept the 3-4 team’s bowl hopes alive.
“You can’t worry. Don’t worry,” Tavai said. “You have 46 seconds to just get rid of the play before, and you gotta worry about the second play.”
SJSU managed to rack up 504 yards of total offense — the third straight UH opponent to go 500-plus — and post a handful of big plays. It led to a 10-0 lead to begin the game.
No sweat, at least when it mattered most.
“I loved the fight in the red zone,” UH coach Nick Rolovich said. “We got a false start, another (offensive pass interference) penalty … they ended up coming up with no points.
“(Jahlani’s interception) was a big gut check for our defense. They didn’t give up. It wasn’t just, ‘They were on the 1-yard line, they’re going to score.’ That hasn’t always been our mind-set. Not only on defense, our whole team.”
Tavai came up with a similar tipped-ball interception in the red zone against Tennessee-Martin last season, quelling a scoring chance for the Skyhawks.
Tavai, a junior from Inglewood, Calif., racked up eight tackles (including six solo) on Saturday, giving him a team-leading 61 for the season.
He made sure credit was spread around to his whole unit, especially sophomore defensive back Kalen Hicks, after blunting the 10-play, 69-yard drive, which ended with under nine minutes left in the third and UH still leading 21-13.
“We had a few schemes going prior to that interception,” Tavai said. “The D-line had a good stunt — that caused them to go offside. They kept pushing themselves back. So after that, it was just (a) great team effort.
“Kalen Hicks had a great rub on the receiver, and just popped the ball in the air. I was just in the right place at the right time. All credit goes to the (team) defense. Without them, that play was not going to happen.”
Senior defensive end Meffy Koloamatangi had some of the defense’s other highlights. He came up with a 12-yard sack of a scrambling Aaron on third down early in the fourth, knocking the Spartans back for a 51-yard field-goal attempt.
Kicker Bryce Crawford, who converted one from 52 yards at the end of the first half, was wide left this time, allowing UH to preserve a 21-20 lead.
And on the visitors’ final desperation drive, Koloamatangi snatched the ball out of the air on a fumble and came down with it with 10 seconds left to silence any further shenanigans by the Spartans.
“It felt good, to see everybody’s faces happy now,” said Koloamatangi, who had three quarterback hurries. “Coming off a bad loss (at Nevada) … it brings the team back up, motivation back up to keep going.”
