Hawaii bowling

The Warriors blow out another opponent to become eligible for December's Hawaii Bowl

LOGAN, Utah » Athletic director Herman Frazier accepted the Hawaii Bowl invitation. The Warriors mugged for the TV camera and performed a postgame haka.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, the celebration of UH's sixth consecutive win, a 63-10 crushing at Utah State yesterday, was over.

The team assembled and broke by shouting in unison its next team goal: "WAC champs."

Sure, it was a happy plane ride home. But the Warriors are already thinking about the home stretch that begins with Saturday's game at Aloha Stadium against LaTech.

Hawaii is 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the Western Athletic Conference, one loss behind unbeaten Boise State (9-0, 5-0). The Broncos are the only WAC team to have beaten the Warriors. But if they finish tied, it is a shared championship.

"It's definitely possible. Boise's not guaranteed every WAC win. We're not guaranteed every WAC win either," said UH receiver Ryan Grice-Mullins, who caught four passes for 135 yards and two touchdowns. "That's why we gotta continue to practice the way we practice and meet the challenges the way we do and continue to do it."

Running back Nate Ilaoa scored three touchdowns while piling up 210 all-purpose yards (including a game-high 155 receiving). He continues a remarkable season a year after coach June Jones called him out publicly for poor conditioning and limited his playing time.

"He's been in pretty good shape all year," Jones said. "We're executing pretty well and Nate's a good football player."

The Hawaii defense again did its part. It recovered three Aggies fumbles and intercepted a pass, scoring touchdowns after all three fumbles.

"Again, when they turned the ball over we did something with it," Jones said. "And that changes momentum in games. The defense has been doing a good job taking the football away."

Linebacker Adam Leonard was in on a game-high 11 tackles and recovered one of the fumbles as well.

"Same old deal, they keep playing hard," said UH defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville, after a second consecutive game of just 10 points for the opponents.

Meanwhile, the Warriors scored enough in each quarter alone (at least 14) to win, as they did against Idaho.

Quarterback Colt Brennan broke two school records in a season-high six-touchdown, 413-yard passing effort. He now holds the UH record for single-season touchdown passes with 39 and most consecutive passes without an interception with 182. (Tim Chang set both records in 2004 with 38 TDs and 179 pick-free passes.)

Brennan was finally intercepted for the first time in five games, late in the third quarter by Terrance Washington.

By then, the score was 42-10, and the only drama remaining was if Brennan was injured by a hit delivered by USU linebacker Paul Igboeli.

"That was one of the few plays that we didn't pick up correctly, and we paid the price for it," Jones said.

But Brennan said he just had the wind knocked out of him. He returned to lead a final touchdown drive, capped by Ilaoa's third score, a 3-yard run ending the third quarter.

The Aggies tried to pressure Brennan, but the Warriors still managed to build an early 14-3 lead on a 29-yard touchdown pass to Grice-Mullins six plays into the game, and a 13-yarder to Ilaoa.

After rare back-to-back punts, the Hawaii defense held. Then the Warriors dug USU's grave with the shovel pass.

UH caught the Aggies in a blitz, with Brennan tossing the ball to Ilaoa. The 5-foot-9, 250-pound Ilaoa, known more this season for bulling through defenders, outran the USU defense 60 yards to the end zone and a 21-3 lead.

Utah State coach Brent Guy said going to the shovel pass was a great adjustment by UH coach June Jones.

"We wanted to give them a different look, because we knew, we sat there and watched everybody else sit back and play zone and let them catch it. ... We played some man, brought some pressure, but Colt did a good job," Guy said. "June ended up going to the shovel, the way we were playing them. That was his best play, and obviously it worked for him."

Hawaii's defense set up the next score, as Rocky Savaiigaea forced Antraun McDaniel to fumble and Lawrence Wilson recovered at the Utah State 48.

Two plays later Brennan hit Jason Rivers 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. Rivers stepped out of a tackle and finished a 35-yard play for his first of two touchdowns, making the score 28-3.

Then it was the shovel again, in the third quarter, and again Ilaoa for 60 yards. It set up a 12-yard TD pass to Davone Bess.

"The first couple of steps, it looks like a pass," Brennan said. "Everybody's saying 'Pass, pass, pass,' then I shovel it to Nate real quick. It puts defenses in a bind, especially when you've got O-linemen who move the way ours do and Nate doing his thing. It's just a great play and I'm glad we capitalized on it."

A big key to the play's success is the offensive linemen selling it as a longer pass.

"We have to act like its pass blocking, then have the right timing to get downfield and block," left guard Hercules Satele said. "We didn't practice that play during the week because we didn't think we were gonna run it that much. But it worked out and Nate took it to the house the first time and then another long one."

Ilaoa now has 13 touchdowns for the season.

"That dude's unstoppable now," Grice-Mullins said. "I think he's one of the best players in the country right now. You see his stats, you see the way he runs. You can't tackle him. He just keeps rumbling."

So does Brennan. He will likely receive some more individual attention after yesterday's performance. But he prefers to talk about team achievements and goals.

"We're bowling, baby -- put on your bowling shoes. It's obviously night and day compared to last year (when Hawaii went 5-7). You look at teams like Utah State, and they're struggling. We were there last year. But we took a couple of things from last year and learned from them," Brennan said.

"Boise State's last game, they're at Nevada. ... We're very much still in the run for a WAC championship. But the main focus is keep winning. We want a WAC championship, but there's a lot of other great things we can have -- a great end to the year, a national ranking. We just gotta keep winning right now."

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