After resembling the walking dead in the first half of tonight’s Mountain West Conference football game with Nevada-Las Vegas, true freshman quarterback Chevan Cordeiro brought Hawaii back to life to save the season.

Completing four of five passes for 153 yards, Cordeiro made the most of them in the 22-point fourth quarter to rally the Rainbow Warriors to an improbable 35-28 victory over the Rebels and secure a bid to the Hawaii Bowl on Dec. 22. The victory snapped a four-game losing streak for the Warriors dating back to an Oct. 6 night at Aloha Stadium, where Cordeiro threw a late pass to secure that 17-13 victory over Wyoming.

Hawaii is now 7-5 for the season and 4-3 in MWC play. UNLV dropped to 3-8 overall and 1-6 in the Mountain West; their lone win coming last week at San Diego State. The Warriors will end their regular season at San Diego State next Saturday, secure in the knowledge they don’t have to win there for the first time since Bob Wagner was the head coach in 1989.

In reality, tonight’s game against struggling UNLV offered the best opportunity to keep playing football in December, but for three quarters it didn’t look like Hawaii would take advantage of it. The visiting Rebels built a 21-6 lead at the half only to see the Warriors chip away at it over the final 30 minutes to rally for the statement-making win for the program.

Quarterback Cole McDonald shook off the blues long enough to run in for a score in the third quarter and then cheered on as the Warriors defense held on a key fourth-and-1 run that got the Aloha Stadium crowd of 22,241 back in it.

Hawaii took over at its own 41 down 21-13 with 54 seconds left in the third quarter and promptly had a false start by Devan Stubblefield putting UH behind the sticks. Two plays later, McDonald threw a costly interception, giving the Rebels a first down at the UH 21 as the third quarter came to a close. He finished the night 14-for-30 for 175 yards, no touchdowns and two picks.

Two snaps into the fourth quarter, a 16-yard touchdown pass from UNLV quarterback Armani Rogers to Evan Owens set back the miracle comeback. But nobody told Cordeiro, who came off the bench and promptly threw a 64-yard touchdown pass to JoJo Ward and then a successful 2-point conversion play to John Ursua to cut UNLV’s lead to 28-21 with 11:42 remaining.

UNLV drove into Hawaii territory and decided to go for it again on fourth down but was stuffed for a loss, turning the ball over at the UH 46 with eight minutes left. Hawaii needed only seven plays to tie it, the last one a spectacular throw and catch from Cordeiro to Ward, who pulled in the high pass and then touched his feet down for the score to tie it at 28-28 with 4:23 left.

And he wasn’t done yet. After the defense held again, Cordeiro needed only four plays to go 79 yards for the score, the last one a 68-yard pass to a wide open Ursua, who went in untouched for the go ahead score. The PAT by Ryan Meskell was good and UH completed the improbable comeback with 1:25 left in the game. UNLV began its last drive deep in its own end, but failed to get a first down to secure the loss.

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