EAST LANSING, Mich. — The search for the first victory of the season now goes on to another week, another state and another time zone for the 0-2 University of Hawai'i football team.

The hunt for a starting quarterback, however, need not.

The Warriors leave here today with the taunts of 74,043 vengeful Michigan State faithful no doubt still ringing in their ears, the result of a 42-14 pasting at Spartan Stadium.

But if there is one thing the Warriors take with them besides their frequent flier miles and an appreciation for the Big Ten atmosphere, it is the knowledge that they have found their starting quarterback in sophomore Colt Brennan.

These Warriors still have plenty of issues to settle — third-down defense, for example — but picking a starting quarterback is no longer among them.

The questions of how the Warriors would go about filling the considerable void left by Tim Chang, and with whom, now appear to have answers. The way the Warriors have been giving up points, 105 in two games, getting somebody who can help put some on the board for UH can't come too soon.

A quest that had the potential to drag on like the Honolulu mass transit debate ended with Brennan's second-half emergence. By completing 13 of 15 second-half passes for 136 yards and two touchdowns without an interception (23 of 31 for 219 yards overall), Brennan effectively wrote his name on the lineup card in his first start.

By running seven times for 37 yards and showing he could move this team with three consecutive second-half drives before leaving with a slight shoulder separation neither he nor the team said was serious, Brennan ended a quarterback debate before it could reach full roar.

It wasn't just his numbers as much as how he coolly, and with visibly increasing confidence, went about compiling them. It was how he scrambled when he had to; how he stepped out of harm's way and delivered passes into spaces sometimes no wider than his coach's headset.

So much so that, for a time, the Brennan-led Warriors almost threatened to make a game of it after falling behind 35-0.

"It was just disappointing that we were down by so much before we started clicking," Brennan said.

Yet, click they did.

"For the first time I really started to feel comfortable," Brennan said. "I started seeing things easier. It is like in basketball when you make a good shot and then everything starts falling, well, everything started to feel right in the second half. There is a definite learning curve you go through but I think I'm starting to make some strides."

A pretty good indication of that was when head coach June Jones called him over for a quick pep talk on the sidelines.

"I told him how impressed I was with him. How he has picked (the offense) up the fastest of anybody I've had."

A remarkable testament, really, since Brennan has had only a little over a month — and no benefit of spring practice — in a UH uniform.

"I don't know how they do it really," said MSU coach John L. Smith, "but those guys always seem to reload with quarterbacks."

If that is truly the case, then the Warriors picked up more than just a $350,000 paycheck for this 4,408-mile trip, they might have also found a quarterback to bank on.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.