On a night when his All-America running back was repeatedly stymied at the line, and his much-feared special teams unit didn't look quite as special, Boise State head coach Chris Petersen could do nothing but nod appreciatively toward Hawai'i for breaking his program's five-year hold on the Western Athletic Conference championship.

"You've got to give credit to Hawai'i," he said. "They've got good players and they play hard. We had our opportunities, but they're an excellent team and we knew it."

Running back Ian Johnson got the Broncos off to a quick start, spinning out of a pair of tackles for a touchdown and 50 of the 78 yards he would accumulate in the first quarter. He added a 1-yard touchdown run in the second, but would gain only 14 total yards in the final three quarters as UH defenders shut him down at the line, and a chasing BSU offense turned to quarterback Taylor Tharp and fellow running back Jeremy Avery down the stretch.

"We gave up that one run because we missed the gap, but after that we played really disciplined and guys did a good job of adjusting at halftime," said UH defensive coordinator Greg McMackin. "They're a great champion, and we had to fight like a mother to take the championship from them."

Johnson finished with 92 yards rushing and 39 yards receiving. He entered the game averaging 104.9 rushing yards.

"We knew if we kept pounding them, we could break them," Johnson said. "But we ended up having to keep scoring when they scored, so we got away from the run. That's really difficult because when you run the ball, you want to hit them, hit them, hit them until they pop. When you slow down the run, and run once and then pass, you can't pound them like that."

Boise State kept the margin close throughout, in part because it was able to record their 10th and 11th blocked kicks of the season, both on point-after attempts by Dan Kelly.

Yet, overall, the Broncos special teams play fell short of their game-breaking reputation.

"It would have been nice to get something really big out of special teams tonight, a kick return or something like that, but we just didn't get it," Petersen said.

The Broncos got a strong game from linebacker Dallas Dobbs, who finished with eight tackles, two sacks (for a loss of 10 yards), and an interception. But the Broncos' defense, which had held opponents to 304 yards of total offense and 18.3 points per game, struggled under the pressure of Hawai'i's relentless passing game, giving up 574 yards and 33 points to the Warriors.

The Broncos were hampered by the loss of their top two cornerbacks, Orlando Scandrick and Rashaun Scott, both to knee injuries suffered during the game.

Offensively, Tharp logged a respectable 231 yards, completing 22 of 36 passes with one touchdown and one interception, but was largely ineffective in the fourth quarter.

"(The Warriors) are a physical team and sometimes you don't pick guys up as cleanly and your quarterback can't see and you drop a few balls here and there," Petersen said.

"When you play a team of this caliber, you've got to get it done — on special teams, on defense, on offense. You've got to work together and feed off each other and that didn't happen tonight."

The loss was Boise State's first in WAC play since 2002, and for Petersen and his team, it couldn't have come at a worse time.

"You like to play these types of games," he said. "It's for all the marbles. It's the last game of the season. It's that type of situation where both teams can win it outright. That's what you work so hard to play for, and it hurts when you can't get it done."

Petersen said he thinks the Warriors should be invited to a BCS bowl game if they beat Washington next week.

"They're a heck of a team. They've got great energy and great momentum going now, and if they win out, I do think they ought to go."

UH athletic director Herman Frazier acknowledged Boise State's contributions as a representative of the conference.

"Boise State is a championship program," Frazier said. "They kept changing coaches over the last few years, but the program kept sustaining itself. That shows that they're a quality program. Today we were lucky because we knocked off the giant."

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.