Sports Watch
Don't tell that to head coach Fred vonAppen. Any time you lose, no matter the score, it's a negative. So vonAppen didn't think there were any positives in the 28-16 loss to Colorado State last Saturday night at Aloha Stadium. He said he would have felt worse if the score had been 21-16.
That was the score at halftime in the Western Athletic Conference game between the defending champions and a team that hasn't won a league game in 11 months.
Whoever scored in the second half would win. So when it came down to that defining moment in the heat and humidity, it was Hawaii that blinked.
And so the frustration for the Rainbows continues in a season now past the point of no return.
"This is my last year, but nobody - seniors, sophomores, juniors - nobody wants to be 1-and-5," said running back Carlos Shaw, one of the game's positives with 80 rushing yards in 12 carries.
Russell Grant, who was making his first start, ran for 87 yards, also averaging more than six yards a carry.
HOWEVER, UH's running game, which netted 221 yards, didn't prove enough for a victory in a game that was very winnable. That only added to the team's frustration.
"You got to execute four quarters, man, that's the bottom line. But the third quarter we came out flat, that's the end result," Shaw said.
"They made some adjustments. The problem with our group is we're young enough, inexperienced enough and struggling with execution that we don't have a very expansive menu. So when adjustments are made, we don't have a lot of different directions to go," vonAppen said.
The 'Bows are 1-5 going into this Friday night's game at San Diego State, facing perhaps the WAC's most explosive team. The game was moved up a day because of a baseball scheduling conflict at Jack Murphy Stadium with the San Diego Padres.
"And the Padres aren't even playing," said vonAppen, "so it was much ado about nothing . . . Shakespeare."
The Padres were eliminated in the National League playoffs so the change wasn't necessary as it turns out. What it did, though, was give the Aztecs two weeks to prepare for the Rainbows, who have only four days. "They don't have to, and we only have four days," said vonAppen, lamenting the scheduling switch.
WHILE vonAppen and his Rainbows are thinking about the Aztecs today, all must be dwelling on the what ifs about the Rams, who had come off a 65-9 loss to Nebraska the week before.
The Rainbows surprised everybody, even the Rams, in staying close at the half. CSU lived up to its reputation as one of the worst teams in the nation (108th out of 111) defensively.
Not that such figures matter.
Fresno State was 107th, giving up 487 yards a game, and still shut out Hawaii, 20-0. Wyoming had given up 38 points and 408 yards a game before playing Hawaii and romping to a 66-0 victory.
But the CSU game was at the friendly confines of Aloha Stadium, before 28,451 fans. The second half, though, was one of complete power failure for UH.
An appropriate word to describe the shortcoming is a baseball term - closure. The 'Bows haven't been able to put away their opponents this season when they've had the chance to win. That cost them the Boston College game. And Ohio University. Colorado State falls in the same category.
"We had our chances with the score, 21-16," vonAppen said. "We managed the run well. What hurt us was that we didn't throw the ball terribly accurate the second half.
"It's the little things that take care of the big things. The big thing is winning and if the little things aren't in order, the big thing won't be there."