The University of Hawaii football team did not lose Saturday because Pofele Ashlock was an inch or 2 short of recovering an onside kick with 78 seconds left.

Yes, it would have given the Warriors (6-3) a chance for a miracle comeback instead of a 45-38 loss, UH’s first defeat since September.

But San Jose State won it way earlier, in the first half, when the Spartans scored more points than the Warriors had allowed in a half all season. UH had given up more than 31 in just two games before Saturday.

When Hawaii’s offense lost a fumble and then went three-and-out twice in a row, the San Jose State offense took full advantage with three touchdowns on the way to a 17-point halftime lead.

The Spartans did it not just with Walker Eget passing to the nation’s top receiver statistically, Danny Scudero, but also with a surprisingly effective running game. Sure, the Eget-to-Scudero connection was sporty, with seven hookups for 215 yards and two TDs, but San Jose State also controlled the point of attack and rushed for 103 first-half yards on 14 carries — an average of 7.4 yards per pop.

For the game, the Spartans ran for four touchdowns, including three by Steve Chavez-Soto.

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As many expected, this was a shootout. But some of the weaponry was surprising; by UH, too, which pulled off a brilliant double pass from Micah Alejado to Tama Uiliata to Devon Tauaefa for 34 yards, keying the drive to open the second half that ended the Warriors’ scoring drought. Alejado’s 6-yard TD pass to Landon Sims cut the lead to 31-21.

There was never a sense that UH was out of the game, especially since the Spartans were a team that found ways to lose coming into this one.

Even in this game, San Jose State did some things in the second half that could have cost it the game. There was an inadvertent snap on fourth down that gave UH the ball around midfield instead of pinned near its own goal line, and Eget’s bobble on third-and-2 forcing a Spartans punt rather than allowing them to run some clock with a two-score lead in the fourth quarter.

UH took advantage of these errors but ran out of time to make up for its own first-half miscues.

The problem for the Warriors wasn’t how they started or how they finished. In a fast-break football game like this you can’t afford at any point to fire blanks three times in a row while your opponents cash in six times without a misfire.

It’s a disappointing loss, but it’s not devastating — UH is still bowl eligible. The disheartening part is the Warriors regressed in the penalties department (10 for 75 yards) and failed to force a turnover while allowing 603 yards.

We knew San Jose State was snake-bitten and better than its 2-5 record coming in indicated. But this much better?

Now Hawaii will have to wait at least one more week to clinch a winning record for the first time in a non-pandemic-abbreviated season since 2019, when Spartans assistant coaches Craig and Billy Ray Stutzmann were on the UH staff.

There is still a slight chance for a berth in the Mountain West championship game, but it is much slimmer than it was before this loss.

The consolation for fans from Hawaii is that San Jose State is coached by Ken Niumatalolo, with the Stutzmann brothers and John Estes assisting him.

“It is exciting,” Warriors coaching legend June Jones texted early in the game. “All my guys.”

They are all UH alumni, and are all like brothers to Warriors coach Timmy Chang and others on the Hawaii staff.

As anyone who has siblings knows, you are happy for them when they beat somebody else. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want to beat them when you’re up against them, whatever the game, whatever the circumstances.