It was retro night at Aloha Stadium all right, but not in the way the long-suffering University of Hawaii football fans had hoped.

While the Rainbow Warriors changed their uniforms back to the kelly green tops and rainbow-piped pants of yesteryear, there was no changing the fact that, after decades of trying, they still have no answer for San Diego State’s running backs.

Or, of late, anybody else’s.

And the inability to slow down, much less stop, the latest one, Aztecs running back Adam Muema, spelled a numbing 10th consecutive loss, this one 28-21 in overtime.

Muema carried the ball 24 times for a game-high 163 yards, gliding the final two for the game-winning score.

As has been the custom too often this year, he made it look way too easy going the 25-yard distance to the deciding score in three carries that UH was powerless to do much about.

Ten times in the last 12 games against UH, a San Diego State back has run for 100 yards or more. It is probably not a coincidence that the Aztecs have won 10 of them.

This time the remnants of the season’s smallest home crowd in Halawa, 23,229, watched in head-shaking disappointment as Muema, a 5-foot-10, 205-pound junior, sliced through a UH defense that gave an impassioned first-half performance but was little more than a speed bump for Muema in a 111-yard second half. Time and again he broke tackles or just floored it past would-be defenders.

For a moment you almost thought that the legendary Marshall Faulk had returned to retro haunt the ‘Bows. Except that in the past five weeks everybody UH has lined up against has had at least one back inflict major damage: Keenan Reynolds of Navy (28-226), Joey DeMartino of Utah State (20-104), Kapri Bibbs of Colorado State (33-137) and Tim Cornett of Nevada-Las Vegas (29-162).

Because UH could not stop any of them when it mattered, the ‘Bows became one of four 10-loss teams in the 126-member Football Bowl Subdivision and head to the frozen tundra of Laramie, Wyo., still staring at the possibility of going 0-for-12.

For the second consecutive week, the inability to put the brakes on an opponent’s running game meant that the ‘Bows squandered a record performance by thundering Joey Iosefa. Last week it was a 35-carry, 191-yard effort at Navy. This time Iosefa put in, well, overtime, with 37 carries for 150 yards and caught two passes, one for a touchdown.

But while Iosefa was too much, he wasn’t quite enough when the bruised and battered ‘Bows defense couldn’t corral somebody else’s running game.

And the Aztecs were waiting for him on the first play of overtime, ganging up to keep him from gaining a yard.

Aztecs coach Rocky Long said, "I thought we were going to score (in overtime), but I also thought they were going to score. I know this is going to sound funny, but I thought the biggest play of the game was on first down (in overtime) when they gave the ball to Joey and we stopped him for no gain. I thought stopping him and making it second and long gave us an advantage."

It did. And it wasn’t funny to the folks in the stands who moaned at its predictability.

It allowed the Aztecs to tee off after that, and it resulted in a sack and two incomplete passes as UH’s hopes of escaping futility ran out.

One of these days the ‘Bows will win a game, but even with Iosefa’s best, they’ll probably have to stop somebody’s running back first.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820