With the injury to starting quarterback Bryant Moniz, who left last night's game in the first half with a concussion, redshirt sophomore Shane Austin was suddenly thrust into his first collegiate game.

Warriors' quarterbacks coach Nick Rolovich said it was a tough way for Austin to make his debut.

"Obviously, it's a tough situation for him to be in," Rolovich said. "With Bryant going down, Shane had to step in, but (Boise State) is a good team with a good defense. He doesn't get a whole lot of (repetitions) at practice and remember he started out as our No. 4 guy."

UH's top quarterback, Greg Alexander, tore knee ligaments in the Sept. 30 loss at Louisiana Tech and underwent season-ending surgery the following week. His top backup during fall camp, Brent Rausch, broke the pinkie finger on his right (throwing) hand and remains unavailable. Moniz, a sophomore walk-on, made his third consecutive start against the Broncos last night, but he left after the first quarter and did not return to the game.

Austin finished with 174 yards on 22-of-36 passing with three interceptions.

"I thought he did OK, thought he had a little bit of nerves," Rolovich said. "He took some chances and got a little desperate at times, but he did some good things for his first time playing in a Division I game and I think he'll get better from here."

It is unclear whether Moniz will be available for Saturday's game at Nevada.

FRESH PAIR OF LEGS

With the game soundly in hand by the second half, third-string running back Matt Kaiserman shouldered much of the load for the Broncos' offense in the final 30 minutes. The freshman from Nampa, Idaho carried 19 times for 99 yards in the third and fourth quarters and capped the scoring with a 1-yard TD run late in the game — not a bad showing for his first collegiate game.

"Matt's practiced well the last couple weeks and it was really good to get him in and get him some meaningful carries, get him into a rhythm and he did a really nice job," Broncos coach Chris Petersen said.

Petersen said he was hesitant to use backup running back Doug Martin, who pulled a muscle during practice last week.

Kaiserman finished with game highs of 23 carries for 122 yards.

LATE TD TO BUILD ON

Hawaii got its only offensive touchdown of the game in the early part of the fourth quarter when Austin connected with senior slotback Jon Medeiros on a 10-yard pass. While it mattered little toward the final result, the Warriors said getting the score was important for the team's morale.

"It was the fourth quarter and all of us felt like we needed to make a play out there, we needed to get on the board," Medeiros said. "We had our opportunities earlier in the game, but we didn't execute like how we wanted to, so when we got down in that red-zone area again, we had to take advantage of it."

Wide receiver Kealoha Pilares agreed: "We can build off of that for next week, but I just think that we need to stop beating ourselves. Everything that could have went bad, went bad. It's kind of hard to win when we have so many turnovers like that."

The Warriors committed six turnovers and were flagged eight times for 50 yards.

KICKER CAN ALSO PASS

Boise State kicker/punter Kyle Brotzman had as good a day a specialist could have last night. He made 4 of 5 field-goal attempts and was 6 of 6 in PATs. Since the Broncos rarely gave up the ball — they punted just twice — his only punt of the game went 72 yards and planted UH at its 4. But his favorite play of the game didn't involve his foot.

Facing fourth-and-4 from the BSU 45, the Broncos lined up in punt formation after their first series of the game. Brotzman fired a 28-yard pass completion to Jason Robinson for a first down to the UH 27. But he would miss his only field-goal try (42 yards) of the game after the play kept the drive alive.

Brotzman said the team has had the fake punt for a while, but hadn't used in a while.

"It's good to see it get use," he said. "I wish we could've gotten some points out of it."

The fake punt was planned, not done ad lib, Brotzman said.

"We check out of it if they cover something we don't like," he said.

NOTES

The Warriors have lost five consecutive games, including their first four WAC games for the first time since 1998 UH suffered consecutive home WAC losses for the first time since 1999 Fetaiagogo "John" Fonoti joined team captains R.J. Kiesel-Kauhane, Rocky Savaiigaea and John Estes as a game captain last night Mana Lolotai made his third start of the season at middle linebacker Entering last night's game, Hawaii averaged 30.5 points per game against the Broncos in six games at Aloha Stadium Boise State leads the all-time series 8-3 and 4-3 in Honolulu.