Everything looked fine after the University of Hawaii football team opened the season with a win over Colorado — including special teams. UH had won the field-position battle decisively largely due to the kicking game. The special teams were living up to the nickname Strike Force.

But you don’t hear that name now, unless it’s accompanied by a derisive snicker, and maybe Force changed to Farce. Numerous miscues week after week lowlighted by two blocked kicks in a 28-27 loss will do that.

When I interviewed the Strike Force commander, special teams coordinator Dick Tomey, after the Colorado win, he was quick to point out a bunch of mistakes, several of them having to do with alignment and assignment. I noted his concerns in a column, but only in passing. Whatever errors were made were overshadowed by the winning performances, and would surely be shored up quickly.

BACK THEN, who expected venial sins would fester and grow into major problems for the Warriors, who are now 3-3, including two losses in road games they were favored to win? Two very bad turnovers in the return game and allowing six blocked kicks? You don’t need me to tell you that’s way too many special teams miscues for even a full season.

Deficiencies are obvious and embarrassing.

But some of you have made it clear in emails and calls to me that you want piling on anyway. OK, consider Tomey and the special teams called out for improvement — vast improvement, immediately. However, those of you who want him fired are going to have to initiate your own little Occupy Lower Campus thing. Good luck with that.

TOMEY AND his players say it has not been a long week of having to deal with criticism headed into Saturday’s homecoming game against New Mexico State. It was a short week of repairing things.

"During the season they’re all short," Tomey said Thursday. "We have a lot of work to do. Having to fix things is SOP (standard operating procedure). The difference from usual is the stuff we had to fix was very visible.

"Losing that way was devastating. A game like that, they made 100 mistakes and we made 101. They won, so theirs are washed away and ours are magnified."

My own eyes and people whose football knowledge I trust say the problems are related to execution more than scheme. Of course, that doesn’t absolve the coaches, and they’ve publicly shouldered responsibility. The coaches are the ones who choose which players to put on the field and are charged with making sure they’re prepared to perform the assigned tasks. If they fail? Get someone else in there who will succeed.

It all seems pretty simple, and that’s why fans are angry.

The coaches hope they have addressed the problems with personnel changes. Players are committed to improvement without panic.

"It’s something to take serious, but not to dwell on," long snapper Luke Ingram said. "It kills me when the offense goes 50, 60 yards down the field, looks to us to close and we can’t go out and do it.

"Our mind-set hasn’t changed. We’re not discouraged or worried. The confidence is still there, in ourselves and the coaches. As players we have to get the job done. The players make the plays."

There’s still time to fix the leaks. But not much.