UH vs USU Wrap-Ups

Stephen Tsai's wrap-up has details about the Warriors' strategy for the game.

The Warriors' strategy was to set up what they call the "quarterback trap." The first step was to narrow the pocket. The Warriors did this by having the defensive ends rush upfield, creating brackets, while the defensive tackles closed the inside lanes. Then the Warriors would do a switch, with the ends slanting toward the inside, and the linebackers defending the perimeters.

In football parlance, it is called "leveraging the ball" — not allowing Borel to get outside.

"That's what we call our quarterback trap," said Tony Tuioti, who coaches UH's defensive tackles.

Ferd Lewis writes about the UH D shutting down another QB.

"We took away their weapons," said defensive lineman Kaniela Tuipulotu in what has increasingly become their trademark.

By the fourth quarter Borel was thoroughly flustered and largely ineffective, having completed just seven of 23 passes, and was picked off twice by linebacker Corey Paredes. A half-dozen other passes were batted down as the Warriors stuffed the running game and suffocated the quick slant passing patterns to befuddle the Aggies offense inside and out.

Kraig Williams of the Deseret News writes about Utah State's demoralizing second half.

But as the rain came crashing down during halftime, so too did the Aggies' chances. Many of the 17,111 people in attendance headed out of the stadium in search of shelter from the rain and the cold. With them they took what little energy was left in Romney Stadium.

"It felt dead in the stadium and that's demoralizing," Kellen Bartlett said. "We don't ever let the crowd get into our heads at all; either home or away the crowd is always a non-factor. They threw a big punch at us in the third quarter and we had a hard time getting back up from it. It kinda stunk not having the crowd out there."

Whatever the reason, Utah State came out of the locker room sluggish and was blown away in the third quarter.

There are more wrap-ups and game summaries from UtahStateAggies.com, CacheValleyDaily.com, and Tony Jones of the Salt Lake Tribune:

In every way, Utah State was beaten — and beaten badly — by a Hawaii team, (6-2, 4-0 in the Western Athletic Conference), that’s proving each week that it’s one of the best teams in the WAC. The Aggies, when it came down to it, simply couldn’t keep up.

“We ran into a better opponent,” Wagner said. “We have to go back to the meeting rooms and rebuild. We have a big game against Nevada next week, and we have to give it our all for all four quarters. Today, we didn’t do that.”

Jones also has some game notes.

Ferd Lewis highlights the performance of Corey Paredes.

Paredes had a game-high 10 tackles, all in keeping with his status as one of the most prolific tacklers in the nation (he was seventh last week, averaging 11.7 per game). But the object — make that plural — of his satisfaction was the first two pass interceptions of his UH career.

After 34 games as a Warrior — 11 of them starts — Paredes finally got his "picks," as he called them, after how many close calls.

"Finally getting one, then two, was really satisfying," said the junior from Castle High.

The Star Advertiser's Warrior Scorebook has news and notes about UH possibly locking up a Sheraton Hawaii Bowl invitation next week, Greg Salas' one-handed catch, David Graves' touchdown, etc., along with some injury news:

Punt returner Ryan Henry suffered a knee injury and his status will be evaluated upon the team's return to Honolulu today.

Offensive lineman Brett Leonard will also have a knee examined at home.

And Alex Green gets a helmet sticker from Andrea Adelson of ESPN.com's College Football Nation Blog.