RUSTON, La. — The Louisiana Tech fans, more than 21,000 strong, came to Joe Aillet Stadium clad in red last night.

But it was the University of Hawai'i football team that left it that way, red-faced in a 27-6 loss on national TV.

It was the 31st Western Athletic Conference season opener for the Warriors, but it is hard to remember a conference beginning that looked so much like an ending of WAC hopes, too.

It wasn't just that UH lost but how the Warriors went about it, languidly, almost in a daze, some playing with heavy hearts following the disaster in Samoa, and totally out-muscled. The Warriors got blown off both lines of scrimmage, gave up yardage in huge chunks, missed tackles and misfired on offense. They yielded seven sacks and turned the ball over three times.

"We couldn't get our whole team clicking," head coach Greg McMackin said.

One after another, UH coaches and players used the description "embarrassed," including McMackin, who termed it, "The worst exhibition of tackling I've coached ... in football. I mean, we were diving; we were not tackling the way we teach."

They helped Bulldog running back Daniel Porter get on ESPN's Top 10 plays, though surely it was difficult to pick just one among his 25 carries for 160 yards and two touchdowns that set the pace for the Bulldogs' 352 rushing yards and 449 yards total offense. The way the Bulldogs' line dominated, the wealth was spread with two other backs who also had over 50 yards on a team that had been 103rd among 120 NCAA teams in rushing at 97.3 yards per game.

The Warriors, who had but two field goals to show for three trips into the red zone, were held without a touchdown for the first time since a 69-3 debacle at Boise State on ESPN in 2004 and blanked in the second half.

Then, adding injury to insult, quarterback Greg Alexander was knocked out of the game with a knee injury with 56 seconds remaining in the third quarter. He will undergo tests after the team returns to Honolulu.

As a result, a three-game road swing that had opened with such promise 18 days earlier with a 38-20 demolition of Washington State in Seattle ended with UH 1-2 (2-2 overall for the season). It concluded with more questions posed than answered, which isn't the idea when you are one quarter the way through the season.

If UH had any hopes of contending for a conference title, they died on the goal line. That's where, at the end of the second quarter, despite seven plays from inside the Tech 20 — and four inside the 2 yard line — UH was unable to punch in a score and went to the locker room down 10-6.

"Eventually we broke their will," said Bulldog coach Derek Dooley, who got his first win in three tries against UH.

He was probably right. If that stand didn't do it, then the interception on the first play of the second half definitely did.

This wasn't the same team that roughed up Washington State or went to the wire with Nevada-Las Vegas. "We didn't play Warrior football," McMackin acknowledged. "That's frustrating."

And, so, too, was the timing of it all. National exposure, the kind that comes with a midweek TV appearance like last night's, can be good for a team and its program. But there's a huge difference between exposure and being exposed. Last night the Warriors were the latter and it was painful for all concerned.

All in all, even the fastest game of the season so far for UH, 3 hours, 2 minutes, couldn't get over quick enough for the Warriors.