Hawaii Football: Warriors Have Their Work Cut out for Them After Tough Loss

If there is a silver lining to Hawaii's loss at San Jose State last Friday night, and for that matter their Week 2 loss at Washington, it is that the Warriors overcame terrible first half performances in both of those games and fought until the bitter end.

No, it did not change the outcome in either instance, but it showed that Hawaii is not going to surrender without a fight. That is important right now because although the Warriors are a disappointing .500 (3-3) after six games, it's not for a lack of trying.

Rather, it has been a circus of mistakes that have undone the defending Western Athletic Conference co-champions and left them scrambling for some consistency; not to mention, a little protection on place-kicks.

"That is unacceptable, to have kicks blocked," head coach Greg McMackin said at his Monday press conference. "We met as a coaching staff and we're changing our scheme, we're changing personnel and we're going back to an inter-locking scheme.

"We obviously can't do what we're doing now. (The blocks are) coming from the same place, it always has. It wasn't in the kickers... it was coming from inside A-gaps and we can't allow that. That's been fixed and now we practice it this week and that's where we are on that. We can't allow that."

The kicking problems that Hawaii has been experiencing this season are approaching the level of comical, except when it literally costs you a game—as it did for Hawaii on Friday night—no one is going to be laughing.

As elementary as point-after kicks often may seem, try this on for size:

If Hawaii simply lined up after Joey Iosefa's 32-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, and had taken a knee instead of attempting to kick a 20-yard PAT, McMackin wouldn't have had to spend the bulk of his presser on Monday rehashing a problem that he vowed to fix two weeks ago.

The kick, of course, was blocked by San Jose State and returned the length of the field for a two-point conversion, spelling the difference in Hawaii's 28-27 loss.

Through six games Hawaii has had six place-kicks blocked, two of which were returned the length of the field (Washington also returned a blocked PAT for a two-point conversion).

"No, it is nobody's fault. I take the responsibility for everything," McMackin said. "At a time like this everybody wants to point fingers, and as I told my team after the game...You point a finger at somebody, there is a finger pointing right back at you. So we are staying together. There is a lot of people jumping off ship and that always happens, that's the name of football, that's the game. That doesn't bother me, they'll be back when we are winning."

Hopefully, for McMackin and his team, the winning will start this Saturday when Hawaii hosts New Mexico State (3-3, 1-1 WAC) at Aloha Stadium.

"We have some games to win," McMackin said. "We have four more games to win to go to a bowl game. Then if we win the right ones, league games, then we are in the same situation we were in last year. So that is where our goals are."

At the least, you know that Hawaii is not going to let their season slip away without putting up a fight.

They have proven that.