Dave Reardon: Lack of running game dooms any hopes of an epic Hawaii win

One of the best plays for the University of Hawaii football team Saturday underscored some of the Rainbow Warriors’ deficiencies in their 16-13 loss to UCLA.

Even if your offense is based on throwing the ball, it’s hard to win when your punter is your leading rusher, with 19 yards.

In an artistic and effective display of courage, deception and acceleration, punter Lucas Borrow took a snap from the Hawaii 31 and ran the ball to midfield. And, just like that, what looked to be a routine three-and-out on the Warriors’ first possession was an extended drive. Quarterback Brayden Schager said Borrow inspired the offense, and five plays later Schager threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Pofele Ashlock.

This play, and a mostly stingy defense, allowed UH to lead against two-touchdown favorite UCLA for most of the game, and the Bruins never held the lead until scoring the winning points on a 22-yard field goal with 56 seconds left.

This game — that, by far, would have been Hawaii’s biggest win in coach Timmy Chang’s three seasons — slipped through the Warriors’ fingers … and we’re not talking just about dropped passes, even though there were plenty of those. There were also three turnovers and 97 yards in penalties.

This game was defined by some good defense and special teams play, but mostly by both teams’ futility on offense, especially when they got near the end zones.

If either had crossed the goal line more than once instead of settling for field goals of 28 (twice), 22, 37 and 32 yards it could have taken control — the favored Bruins and the underdog Warriors both had plenty of chances to do so.

But the red zone was the dead zone for both teams. UCLA was 0-for-3 and UH 1-for-3 at scoring touchdowns on their forays beyond the opponents’ 20-yard line.

Everybody knows seven points are better than three, but no one successfully acted on that notion except for UH on the fake-punt drive, and UCLA when it scored on a 29-yard pass to Rico Flores Jr., that cut a 10-0 lead to three points midway through the third quarter.

The Warriors then did what they needed to — sort of — by immediately responding with a scoring drive.

But because it was just the three points derived from Kansei Matsuzawa’s second 28-yard field goal, it was easy to believe the decisive turning point had occurred — even though UH still led, 13-7.

Also, earlier, Hawaii needed a touchdown, not an interception by Ramon Henderson when UH had second-and-goal at the Bruins 2 late in the first half.

Then, when UCLA’s Ethan Garbers inexplicably threw it to Hawaii linebacker Logan Taylor at the Bruins 6 with 30 seconds to the break, Hawaii again needed a touchdown, not a field goal.

This is where UH’s lack of a running game hurt it so much in this game.

Schager almost always falls forward at the end of his runs. He has developed into a bull. But the matadors of the UCLA pass rush gored him too many times Saturday.

His toughness is to be admired, but the hits kept coming, and they affected him adversely — running and passing — late in Saturday’s game.

He started out great, completing nine of his first 11 passes. But then it was 16 of 31 the rest of the way, with two interceptions. He didn’t miss a down, but Schager was sacked five times for 26 yards and finished with negative rushing yardage.

“Brayden was a little banged up,” UH coach Timmy Chang said. “Maybe it affected him, but the kid is so tough.”

Both offenses were bad on third and fourth down — 4-for-13 for UCLA and 5-for-17 for UH, including Borrow’s successful fake punt.

When it came to momentum, it was eerily, but not totally unexpectedly, like Hawaii’s first game last week, the 35-14 win over Delaware State.

Like UH last week, UCLA playing in its first game, even as a double-digit favorite, started slowly. In both games the underdog was better early. And in both games, the favored team gradually figured it out enough to win.

The frustrating difference for Hawaii and its fans is that the Warriors had the lead for most of this game against a big-name Power Four foe, but lost more because of its own mistakes than any heroics by its opponents. UH could have been 2-0 after one of the biggest upsets of Week One.

But reality is 1-1, a bye, and then another nonconference game, this one on the road at Sam Houston State in Texas.

“Gotta move on,” Schager said. “We get one day to be mad about this one and then two weeks to get ready for the next one.”