Hawaii took whatever the Central Arkansas offense gave it on Saturday night.
The Rainbow Warriors got an early jolt from nickelback Kai Kaneshiro’s pick-6 touchdown and weathered a heretofore unseen running attack from the pass-happy Bears in a 35-16 win at Aloha Stadium.
UH allowed season lows in points and yards (335) and held the Bears of the FCS to 5-for-16 on third-down conversions in improving to 3-1 heading into Mountain West Conference play.
The previously unbeaten Bears (3-1) had a pass-pass-pass reputation — and lived up to it with 51 slings by quarterback Breylin Smith — but mixed in an effective changeup in the form of running back Carlos Blackman, who took it 147 yards with a touchdown on 17 carries.
“A little bit different (from what they’d done), but we were expecting a little more run just because of our track record,” conceded senior defensive end Kaimana Padello, who had a season-high six tackles, a sack and a forced fumble. “Guys really ran the ball on us (in the first three games). So we weren’t really surprised. We were prepared to play for anything they gave us.”
On UCA’s first drive, a tipped ball landed in the hands of the redshirt freshman Kaneshiro for the second time this season. Unlike his first against Arizona, when he fully extended for it, he remained on his feet and motored 55 yards to the end zone for the first Rainbow Warriors pick-6 since Solomon Matautia did it against Fresno State in 2017.
“That was exciting. My brother got a pick-6,” said cornerback Khoury Bethley, who got to play the full game after being ejected for targeting immediately in last week’s loss at Washington. “That was crazy on the field. Happy for him, he balled, and it’s a great moment. The stadium was jumping.”
Once the Rainbows put up the first 28 points of the game, the Bears parlayed Blackman’s 42-yard run into their first touchdown in the second quarter.
In the fourth, Blackman busted some tackles on a 23-yard touchdown run to get the Bears within 28-16.
They had a chance to edge even closer after recovering Miles Reed’s second fumble of the game with 12:02 to play.
But the defense buckled down near midfield, forcing three straight incompletions and a holding call to extinguish the threat.
“That’s your job, put out the fire,” defensive coordinator Corey Batoon said. “I don’t care how you get the ball, sudden change, whatever. Crazy things happen. Our job as a defense is to go and put the fire out and get the ball (back).”
Quarterback Cole McDonald turned that into a touchdown toss to freshman Lincoln Victor and the threat was over; defensive back Donovan Dalton knocked down Smith’s final pass of the game near the goal line for good measure.
“They’re a second-half team. They’re very well coached,” Batoon said. “They made adjustments. We just had to continue to drive away at it. It was just one of those sloppy games. Sometimes those games can get your frustrated, but I thought our kids stayed composed and stayed in the moment. Didn’t allow any crazy things to happen, in terms of trick plays, shock plays, explosion plays.”
