The best thing you can say about the University of Hawaii football team Saturday against Utah State is that the Rainbow Warriors did not give up in their 41-34 loss that was never really that close.

They showed flashes of brilliance, and it may have seemed like they were in it at times, but there’s no other way to put it. They mostly played poorly against an opponent that is not a very good team itself — trust your own eyes and the record on that one, not what people say to be nice or what the Aggies did last year.

Saturday at the Ching Complex started with some promise for Hawaii. Then again, so did the season opener against Vanderbilt, and several other games this fall — and I apologize for reminding you about that, because of how all but two of them have ended.

One of the unfortunate things about the Rainbow Warriors is that, as a team, they show only rare glimpses of improvement in football fundamentals nearly three months later, and are 2-9 with two games left in a season that can’t end soon enough.

Did they make big offensive plays Saturday? Yes. Did their defense stiffen in the second half ? Yes.

And, yes, sometimes the special teams are special.

But this team once again did not live up to the buzz phrase that coach Timmy Chang mentioned postgame: complementary football.

Or, as quarterback Brayden Schager said: “We’re not playing 11-on-11 football. Sometimes it’s me making the mistake, sometimes other guys.”

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Conversely, Schager makes some great throws, and many other guys make some great plays. It’s just not enough, and there’s not enough consistency.

Between the spectacular, the Warriors make way too many fundamental mistakes for those big plays to make a winning difference.

In this one, early against the Aggies, Caleb Phillips was in the end zone after latching onto a pass from Schager. But that apparent touchdown was called back, and UH had a worse first quarter last night than Wall Street did this year. At least for UH, stocks rebounded sharply with a 43-yard run by Nasjzae Bryant-Lelei to end the first 15 minutes.

For the game, the Warriors lost the turnover battle four to zero, were penalized 10 times for 115 yards and converted on third down just four of 14 times. The Aggies weren’t much better in those last two metrics, but they screwed up less enough to win on the road.

There was also a wondrous Schager-Phillips connection early in the fourth quarter for a 31-yard touchdown … this one counted, and it came when the Warriors trailed by 17 and needed to make something happen to have any kind of chance down the stretch.

UH was in it the rest of the way, mostly because Utah State failed at doing what it needed to do to close it out. But even when the Aggies had seemingly planted the dagger — Ike Larsen’s pick-6 with 4:33 left making it a three-score game at 41-24 — Hawaii continued to battle.

But a critical holding call negated a completed pass that would’ve given UH first-and-10 in the red zone while there was still time for that to make a difference.

“You can’t make as many mistakes as we did on offense, defense and special teams and expect to win the game,” Chang said. “They fight to the end, I love them for that.”