The Hawaii football team braved the Manoa rain and crosswinds, but could not stop the clock or UNLV in a 29-27 loss at the Ching Complex on Saturday night.
A crowd of 10,655 saw the Rainbow Warriors, who entered as 13-point underdogs, fall short in an attempt to reclaim the Island Showdown Trophy.
“Any time you lose close ones like this, it’s tough ones to swallow,” UH coach Timmy Chang said.
Quarterback Brayden Schager: “It hurts to continue to have two- or three-point losses. they hurt worse than blowouts or anything. It’s hard. You can look back at two or three plays in games and (they’re) different stories. It’s hard.”
With UNLV leading 22-20, running back Jai’Den Thomas appeared to be stopped for a short gain. But he remained on his feet and broke away for a 33-yard scoring run to extend the Rebels’ lead to 29-20 with 6:03 to play.
But the Rainbow Warriors responded with two big plays. Schager found Nick Cenacle on a deep route along the left sideline. The pass was slightly under fueled, enabling Cenacle to reach back, creating separation, and making the catch at the 23. Then Cenacle cut across before he was stopped at the 5 to complete the 62-yard completion. On the next play, Schager lofted a pass to wideout Jonah Panoke on a fade in the end zone to cut the deficit to 29-27 with 4:15 to go.
A week earlier against Fresno State, the Warriors’ winning drive was set up when their defense, equipped with three timeouts, was able to force a three-and-out. But this time, the Warriors were down to two timeouts — their own and the game’s timeout at 2:00 — to stop the Rebels and the clock. Earlier in the fourth quarter, the Warriors had to burn their second timeout when they believed Panoke made a leaping catch along the right sideline. Either the officials did not review the play or quickly determined Panoke did not have full control when he landed with a foot inbounds.
“What do you do in a situation like that?” Chang said of being forced to burn a timeout. “I think it’s a catch. I’ve got to fight for an explosive play down the field, being down the way we’re down, and they said the ball moved. I don’t know. It looks like a catch with a foot (down). … To me, it looked like a catch.”
It did not matter in the final series as the Rebels took over and did not give back possession. Twice they converted on third down, the biggest when quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams went 40 yards around the left side on third-and-3 with 53 seconds to play. Having exhausted their timeouts by then, the Warriors could not stop the Rebels from running out the clock.
The Warriors fell to 4-6 overall and 2-3 in the Mountain West with two games remaining in the regular season. UH defeated two FCS schools, but only one of the victories may be counted toward bowl eligibility. But even if the Warriors fall short of the minimum six “official” victories, they probably would be in consideration if they win out and there are not enough eligible teams to fill the bowl slots.
For now, the Warriors are left to reflect on a game when they made big plays but also relinquished big plays, and benefited and were hurt by penalties.
Schager was 14-for-35 and sacked six times. But he threw for 282 yards (20.1 yards a completion) and three touchdowns.
On UH’s first possession of the game, what should have been a completion to Cenacle ricocheted off the junior slotback and was intercepted by Johnathan Baldwin. That set up freshman Caden Chittenden’s 41-yard field goal, his 19th trey in 22 attempts. Chittenden then missed his next two field-goal attempts, from 28 and 31 yards.
Later, an apparent pick-6 for the Rebels was overturned when defensive lineman Tatuo Martinson was penalized for a late hit on Schager.
UNLV’s Ricky White III blocked a Lucas Borrow punt out of the UH end zone for a safety and a 12-7 lead in the first half. It was White’s NCAA-leading fourth block of the season. Irvin DeAngelo fielded the ensuing free kick at the UNLV 16 and raced his way to the UH 1. But the apparent 83-yard return was nullified because of a holding penalty.
The Warriors held the Rebels’ prolific Go-Go Offense to seven scoreless possessions in a row — five of them resulting in punts. But the Warriors yielded touchdowns on Williams’ 23-yard keeper, White’s 37-yard catch-and-dash between two UH defensive backs, and Thomas’ decisive 32-yard run in which he escaped two would-be tacklers.
Williams took over the offense in the fourth game after Matt Sluka quit the Rebels over a dispute on his NIL compensation. But the Go-Go Offense — a hybrid of the triple option, run/pass option and play-action — averaged 41.4 points and 420.2 yards in the next five games with Williams at the controls. The Warriors mixed fronts and assigned a “spy” defender to track Williams, strategies that worked except for untimely breakdowns.
“At the end of the day, the message is: We didn’t make enough plays to beat a good team,” Chang said. “That’s what they are. They’re a good football team. They do a lot of damage to a lot of other teams. These guys stood in there. And took the punches, and rolled with it, and our guys responded. I thought our guys played really well at certain points of the game, both offense and defense and special teams in some areas. At the end of the day, we did not make enough plays.”
