Trudging off the blue turf after being blasted 59-37 at Boise State last month, University of Hawaii running back Miles Reed yelled a defiant pledge to anybody who would listen.
“Right back here (to Boise)! Right back here (to Boise)!…” Reed repeated all the way to a sullen locker room.
What seemed a lot like whistling in the graveyard 42 nights ago became remarkable reality Saturday as the Rainbow Warriors punched their ticket to the Dec. 7 Mountain West Championship game against the Broncos with a 14-11 victory over 25th-ranked San Diego State.
In a rough-and-tumble game that was a lot like the stretch run to their 8-4 season to this point, the Warriors held on as Aztecs place-kicker Matt Araiza’s attempt at a game-tying 48-yard field goal went wide right with two seconds remaining.
When quarterback Chevan Cordeiro fittingly took a knee as time expired after another game-saving relief appearance, the second-largest home crowd of the season, 21,592, erupted in cheers and coach Nick Rolovich was doused with a cooler of Powerade.
Thus began the celebration of the West Division championship, UH’s first title of any sort in eight years of MWC membership.
UH and San Diego State (8-3) finish 5-3 in the conference and Nevada (7-4, 4-3) has an opportunity to match it. But the Warriors, by virtue of Saturday night’s triumph and a 54-3 clobbering of the Wolf Pack in September, own the tie-breakers and, with them, the bid to play the host Broncos.
Twenty minutes after UH wrapped up its division, the 20th-ranked Broncos (10-1) put the finishing touches on the Mountain Division with a 56-21 thumping of Utah State.
The 14 points matched UH’s lowest scoring output in Rolovich’s tenure and a defense that has showed its teeth allowing just one touchdown over the last seven quarters made it stand up. The unit forced the Aztecs to punt on five of eight possessions and held the offensively challenged Aztecs to 89 yards rushing, their second-lowest output of the season.
It would be left to Cordeiro, who was pulled 14 plays into last week’s victory at Nevada-Las Vegas, to come off the bench in relief of starter Cole McDonald in the third quarter and help save this one.
This time he was summoned with UH clinging to a 7-3 lead and backed up to its 4 yard-line. His first play, a handoff to Reed, nearly went for a safety and, suddenly, UH was wedged inside its 1-yard line.
But Cordeiro proceeded to coolly engineer the longest UH drive of the season, a 96-yard, 14-play, 7-minute, 12-second march, to what proved to be the deciding score, Fred Holly III’s 11-yard touchdown run with 5 minutes, 15 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
Cordeiro set it all up with four runs — three of them producing first downs — for 53 yards. He emerged as the game’s top rusher (eight carries for 59 yards) and completed nine of 16 passes for 71 yards.
On an occasion when two of the nation’s top 20 receivers, Cedric Byrd (four catches, 29 yards) and JoJo Ward (1 catch, 9 yards), were held in check, Jason-Matthew Sharsh (10 catches, 95 yards, one touchdown) and Jared Smart (seven receptions, 82 yards) carried the night.
When Reed issued his ‘we shall return’ pledge in October, Rolovich raised an eyebrow and responded with a challenge.
“If we want to come back here (for the title game), we have a lot of work to do,” Rolovich said.
Saturday night was testament to just how far these ‘Bows have come in the interim, and where it is taking them.