UNLV football’s bowl hopes crushed with 31-25 loss at Hawaii

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022 | 11:49 p.m.

With 10 minutes left in third quarter of Saturday’s game at Hawaii, UNLV quarterback Doug Brumfield took a shotgun snap and feigned a handoff to his right.

No running back was there to accept the fake.

Brumfield then spun left to deliver the real handoff. Again, no one was home.

Left alone in the backfield with the play collapsing around him, Brumfield had no choice but to tuck the ball and run behind an offensive line that had no idea who it was blocking for. Hawaii defenders easily surrounded Brumfield and pulled him down for a 4-yard loss.

If there was any one play that served as a microcosm of UNLV’s unthinkable 31-25 loss — and, really, the entire six-game losing streak that sunk the season and eliminated the team from bowl eligibility — it was that haphazard call.

In an absolute must-win game against one of the worst teams in the country, UNLV was out of sorts and out of sync from the opening snap. And now the program’s push for its first bowl appearance in 10 years has run out of time.

After a glistening 4-1 start to the season that raised hopes UNLV football had turned a corner in Marcus Arroyo’s third year at the helm, Saturday’s defeat dropped the Scarlet and Gray to 4-7, guaranteeing another losing season and another year without a postseason berth.

Hawaii attempted to gift wrap a victory for UNLV on several occasions. The Rainbow Warriors led, 24-16, midway through the fourth quarter and had possession, but quarterback Braydon Schager was loose with the ball while rolling out of the pocket and Adam Plant was able to sack him and force a fumble. Elijah Shelton recovered in the end zone to give UNLV life.

The offense lined up for a game-tying 2-point conversion, but Brumfield’s rollout pass to Kyle Williams was knocked down at the goal line, prompting Williams to scream at Brumfield while Hawaii defenders celebrated the stop.

Hawaii drove inside the UNLV 20 on the ensuing possession and appeared to be on the verge of scoring to put the game away, but running back Tylan Hines fumbled it back to UNLV.

The Scarlet and Gray accepted Hines’s generosity and advanced to midfield before being faced with a 4^th-and-5. With 4:25 on the clock, Arroyo chose to go for it. Hawaii blitzed everyone, and Brumfield’s short pass over the middle was batted away incomplete.

Hawaii running back Dedrick Parson broke free for a 34-yard touchdown three plays later to make it a 31-22 game, all but ending UNLV’s season.

There were other misfires by UNLV throughout the night. Reliable kicker Daniel Gutierrez bounced a fourth-quarter attempt off the upright, defensive back Johnathan Baldwin committed a personal foul penalty in the third quarter and then gave up a 55-yard touchdown pass on the very next snap, and Arroyo mismanaged the clock at the end of the first half, possibly costing UNLV a shot at a late field goal attempt. But those plays were minor factors in the grand scheme of the fatal six-game losing streak.

Brumfield completed 23-of-37 passes for 288 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

Schager passed for 202 yards and three touchdowns, while Parson ran for 115 yards and a score. As a team Hawaii averaged 5.9 yards per play.

UNLV will now turn to next week’s finale, a home game against UNR with the Fremont Cannon as the prize.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.