After a hard-fought loss to Boise State at home last week, a question of commitment was posed by coach Timmy Chang and quarterback Brayden Schager to the rest of the Hawaii football team.

The Rainbow Warriors have a chance to answer it on Saturday.

UH (2-4), hobbled by some significant injuries, is a sizable underdog (18.5 points as of Friday afternoon) for its 9:30 a.m. Hawaii time game at Washington State of the Pac-12 at Gesa Field.

Two of the team’s top playmakers on either side of the ball, receiver Pofele Ashlock and safety Peter Manuma, are questionable to play after going out with injuries in Saturday’s 28-7 decision against BSU.

Manuma exited moments into the game with an apparent stinger and was taken to a hospital for imaging, which Chang said Tuesday was negative for significant damage. Ashlock, the favorite target of quarterback Brayden Schager, left after a second-quarter hit to the head that was assessed as targeting on the Broncos. Ashlock returned to the game for short stretches but was clearly limited.

Ashlock has 43 of UH's 146 receptions this season. He was to travel for Saturday’s game, Chang said.

“We’re fighting through adversity right now,” Chang said. “We’ve got to get better, get better in particular areas. Be more efficient. That’s the conversation.”

Hawaii’s last win against a Pac-12 team on the continent came against Wazzu, at CenturyLink Field in Seattle in 2009.

UH has never faced WSU in Pullman, in the rural Palouse region in the eastern pocket of the state, but running back Landon Sims, a native of Gig Harbor on the state’s western coastline, has been there.

“It’s a rowdy crowd,” Sims told Hawaii media this week. “They love their football out there. Pullman, Washington, that’s pretty much all they got out there. I’m expecting it to be intense, loud. That focus really needs to show up this week if we want to have success.”

To top it off, it is homecoming week for the Cougars (5-1) in their first home game in nearly a month. UH practiced with artificial crowd noise this week.

Coach Jake Dickert, who succeeded ex-UH coach Nick Rolovich as acting coach in 2021 after Rolovich refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, has the Cougars off to their best start since 2018.

Wazzu’s only loss came against Boise State, 45-24, on Sept. 28. It has already claimed the Apple Cup in its annual rivalry game with Washington and is coming off a 25-17 win at Fresno State.

WSU is part of the two-team Pac-12 remnant that raided the Mountain West for five teams who decided to leave in 2026. Prior to that, this week’s game was arranged through a one-year scheduling alliance between the Pac-12 and MWC that caused Air Force to be replaced by the Cougars on UH’s schedule.

“Those are things out of our control, but now they’re on our schedule,” Chang said. “All our Mountain West teams are dealing with it. If you catch them (by dealing them a loss), you catch them. That’s what we want to do — we want to catch them.”

Running a version of the old Air Raid, WSU quarterback John Mateer became the first Cougar quarterback to post 300 passing yards and 100 rushing yards in a game in the double-overtime, 54-52 win over San Jose State on Sept. 20.

He already has the most rushing yards by a Cougar quarterback (499) in a season in school history, and his 13 passing touchdowns ranks No. 21 in the country.

Meanwhile, running back Wayshawn Parker’s 388 yards on the ground is sixth among all FBS freshmen.

Even after its 28-7 loss to BSU, UH remains the MWC leader in points allowed (20.5) and total defense (332.8).

“I played this Hawaii team back in my time at Wyoming, and they’re known for being aggressive, playing fast,” Dickert said during his weekly WSU media show. “They’ve got a little different scheme that they have been, but they tackle extremely well. They disguise their coverages, they play a bunch of man, they get in your face, they want to blitz you. They’ve kept everybody off-balance this season. The numbers speak for themselves, and we’re halfway through the season.”

Defensive lineman Ezra Evaimalo, who was ejected for a targeting hit in the first half against BSU, said he believes that good things will happen for Dennis Thurman’s defense.  

“We can’t be in our feelings,” Evaimalo said. “That’s the biggest step moving forward. Wake up. It’s time to go. Boise happened, it came and went.”

A chief problem has been an often-sluggish offense. Schager was sacked a season-high eight times by BSU.

“Sacks fall on everybody. I don’t think you can pinpoint one thing,” Chang said.

WSU has Kamehameha graduate Tanner Moku, a senior defensive back, Kahuku graduate Hyrum-Benjamin Moors, a freshman defensive tackle, and Kamehameha-Maui alum Kapena Gushiken, a senior safety.

Gushiken was recruited by UH, first as a walk-on out of high school, then with a scholarship after he went to junior college. There are two of his former KSM teammates on UH’s roster in receiver Karsyn Pupunu and defensive back Kimo Holo Holt-Mossman.

“There’s a big connection between me and the coaching staff,” he said to WSU media this week. “I feel at the end of the day, it’s just business. They’re going to come here, we’re both going to play football.”

Former record-setting Kahuku running back Mark Atuaia is WSU’s associate head coach and running backs coach.

UH is 0-4 against FBS teams this season and is 1-13 on the road in the three-year Chang era.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.