HONOLULU — Even by the time the Hawaii football team returned home from its lengthy and disappointing journey to Huntsville, Texas, via charter on Sunday morning, there was more to be said about the weekend's 31-13 loss to Sam Houston, a second-year FBS program.
Rainbow Warriors players met amongst themselves Monday morning to discuss the team’s problems that included a whopping and ill-timed 14 penalties for 122 yards.
“We needed to address that discipline issue as a team,” running back Landon Sims said after an energetic practice Tuesday. “I mean, the coaches can tell us, they can demand all they want, but it’s us that has to flip the switch, make the change of heart.”
It was the most times UH was flagged in a game since it committed 15 in a win over Tulsa in 2004. One player, center Sergio Muasau, was ejected with two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
Some of the unsportsmanlike and holding penalties were drive-killers against the Bearkats, who racked up a UH opponent season high in rushing yardage (257).
Linebacker Jalen Smith said the joy of the preseason hasn’t been apparent in recent days, but that is to be expected given back-to-back losses in games the team felt it should’ve won.
Said Smith of the myriad infractions, “That comes down to discipline, man. I know you guys probably seen it all over social media. It’s discipline. I know we’ve got a disciplined team, we just got a lot of guys with passion and emotion. They could probably do a better job controlling it. I was one of them last year, I can say that. I’ve worked on it this year. But at the end of the day it don’t do us no good to get that many penalties.”
UH (1-2) has one chance to display improvement before the Mountain West Conference portion of the schedule begins. It faces Northern Iowa (2-1) of the FCS at 6 p.m. Saturday.
The Rainbow Warriors have beaten 21 straight FCS opponents dating back to 2001, including a 35-14 win over Delaware State in the season opener last month, but a competitive contest is expected against UNI; UH is only an 8 ½-point betting favorite over the 19th-ranked team a division down.
That could be in part due to the Warriors’ anemic offense the last two weeks. This year’s version of the run and shoot has generated just 305.7 yards of total offense per game, including 227.3 yards passing.
Coach Timmy Chang said there were no plans to divert from senior quarterback Brayden Schager, who is one game shy of Bryant Moniz’s program record of 26 consecutive starts. Backup quarterback John-Keawe Sagapolutele has yet to see action.
Asked if UH planned to make any changes to its offensive approach in the run and shoot on Saturday, Chang said, “It’s a chance for us to be more efficient at it. That’s what we’re trying to do. To me, getting better at doing the little things for us in this offense matters. And so, we gotta get good at doing those things, and we will see the results.”
Chang conceded that UH will probably not win the time of possession battle after the Panthers of the Missouri Valley Conference dominated that statistic, 38 minutes to 22 minutes, in a 34-3 loss at Nebraska last week.
Clock control via a physical ground game is a large part of the game plan for Panthers coach Mark Farley, who is in his 24th season leading the program from Cedar Falls. He is the third-winningest active coach in FCS with 182 victories.
“Really good defense, hold the ball on offense,” Chang said. “They went for a lot of fourth downs (2-for-4 against the Cornhuskers) and they have really good special teams. It’s a really good opponent. It’s one style of playing football, and if you can win to that style…”
There has been only one previous meeting between the programs who share a link through the late athletic director Stan Sheriff. UH hosted UNI at Aloha Stadium in 2014, a 27-24 UH victory in which it never trailed but were sorely tested in a game that featured 24 punts. Multi-purpose star Scott Harding helped by pinning the Panthers inside their 20 seven times.
UH, under third-year coach Norm Chow, also held the Panthers to 55 yards rushing, while Rainbows back Steven Lakalaka erupted for a career-high 124 on the ground. It could be a challenge to replicate that feat, as the Panthers have generated 245.3 per game on the ground this year – including 365 in UNI’s season-opening win over Valparaiso – while UH has averaged just over 78 yards rushing.
Backs Tye Edwards (347 yards, 8.9 yards per carry) and Amauri Pesek-Hickson (230, 5.5) have accounted for 78.4% of the Panthers' rushing production.
“Hopefully we’re on the field as long as they (are), but if it goes the other way it makes no difference,” Smith said. “We’re just going to play ball.”
It is UH’s first time playing two FCS opponents in the same season since 2007. A second FCS win would not count toward UH bowl eligibility.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.