Some wave signs.

Some have e-mail campaigns.

The University of Hawai'i football team declared its candidacy for a national ranking with last night's statement-making 54-17 victory over San Jose State.

Before 29,523 at Aloha Stadium, the Warriors relied on quarterback Colt Brennan (402 yards passing, five touchdown passes), running back Nate Ilaoa (100 yards rushing, two touchdowns) and an insulted defense to win their school-record eighth in a row.

Last week, the Warriors received the 26th-most votes from the AP top-25 pollsters. By improving to 9-2 overall and finishing with a 7-1 Western Athletic Conference record, the Warriors believe they should be knock-knock-knockin' on the door to a national ranking.

"(No. 21) Maryland lost, so it's time to make room," Ilaoa said. "That's our slogan: "Make room!"

Slotback Davone Bess, who made six catches for 81 yards and two touchdowns, said: "We deserve to squeeze in there. If we had a vote, I would vote, 'Yes.' "

But with two games remaining in the regular season against BCS teams — Purdue and Oregon State — Brennan said there's no urgency.

"To be honest, we don't care," Brennan said. "We don't need to be in the Top 25 right now. If we win the next two games, we're not going to be in the Top 25, we're going to be in the top 20. We can make a statement in the next two weeks, and they'll have no choice but to put us in."

For UH's offense, last night's statement was: patience.

Although the Warriors scored on eight of the nine full possessions when Brennan was at quarterback, they were admittedly off their game. Dropped passes and untimely penalties forced the Warriors twice to settle for field goals in the first half, in which they led 20-10.

In the previous nine games, the Spartans played mostly zone defensive coverages. Last night, they alternated between a three- and four-man defensive line, while playing man coverage in the secondary.

"That threw us off a little bit," Bess said. "We went into halftime, and made the adjustments. The coaches opened up the playbook, and they allowed us to make plays and do our things, which is putting up points."

Brennan said SJSU is a "much better team than we had been playing (in recent weeks). We made a lot of mistakes, and it felt like we were having a slow start. Maybe that's the standard we've kind of set."

Ilaoa, who did not play last week because of a "tweaked" right ankle, provided a boost to the four-wide offense. He opened the second half with a 4-yard run, and closed the game's scoring with a 19-yard pass from Brennan.

"I was rusty at first, but then I felt better," said Ilaoa, who caught six passes for 66 yards.

Ilaoa contributed to two touchdowns without touching the football.

In the first quarter, UH called for "Texas," a play in which Chad Mock, aligned at left wideout, runs a post pattern while Bess, in the left slot, runs a slant. This time, Ilaoa motioned to the far left before the snap, drawing a safety away from the secondary. Mock raced into the vacated area and secured Brennan's pass to complete the 36-yard scoring play.

"Nate helped out," Mock said. "He allowed me to get the inside position."

In the second quarter, after UH advanced to the SJSU 8, Brennan was set to shovel a pass to Ilaoa.

"They did a great job reading it," Brennan said. "I'm like, 'Everybody is on Nate right now.' I stopped, looked to the left, and there was a big hole. I ran through it (for the touchdown)."

Ilaoa said: "That's part of the game. You have to mid-stream adjust, and that's what Colt did. It's another chapter to his book."

Brennan then deflected praise to the defense, saying, "those guys do so much for us. Whenever the defense gets a turnover, it's oh, so sweet. For the offense, it's a touchdown in our minds."

The Warriors were prepared for the challenge of facing the WAC's second-best rushing team (197.9 yards per game) and the nation's 16th-best rusher (Yonus Davis, averaging 101.3 yards per game).

Davis and UH's Bess are childhood friends, and they talked Friday night. UH stays in Waikiki the night before games, and the Spartans were at the nearby Hyatt Regency. Apparently, what happens in Waikiki doesn't stay in Waikiki.

Passed through the coconut wireless, the conversation between the two players ended up being a taunt to UH defenders' ears.

"Through the grapevine, I heard he said he would rush for 200 yards," UH inside linebacker Adam Leonard said. "He thought we were basically trash. We had to show him tonight we could play."

Led by an overpowering defensive line — ends Ikaika Alama-Francis and Melila Purcell III and nose tackle Michael Lafaele — the Warriors smothered the Spartans' power running game. First, Davis was limited to running between the tackles and, after a while, he was running in place.

Davis finished with 29 yards on 14 carries, an average of 2.1 yards per rush. The Spartans gained a total of 82 rushing yards on 38 carries.

"We heard he was going to get 200 yards rushing," free safety Leonard Peters said. "He might have got that side to side, but the last time I checked, they don't record the side to side."

"Nope," Leonard said, "I don't think they count that nowadays. Give credit to our defensive line. They did a great job. They dominated the whole game."

The Spartans frequently used six offensive linemen at the same time. On power plays, 6-foot-4, 335-pound Jibri Sharp played fullback.

But Lafaele said, "we knew one person couldn't stop them. That's why we swarmed to the ball. We tried to get in (Davis') head. Every time we saw him with the ball, we swarmed at him. We wanted to make sure he knew we were there."

Davis admitted to sharing goals with Bess. "I was predicting stuff and he was predicting stuff," Davis said. "Obviously, he got the job done. We just didn't get the job done on our side."

Adam Tafralis, who entered having completed 68 percent of his passes, was 7 of 15 for 110 yards. He fumbled twice on scrambles, and was sacked four times. SJSU allowed 10 sacks in the previous nine games.

SJSU offensive lineman Marcel Burrough said: "They came to play. They out-physicaled us up front. The offensive line did not get the job done. We didn't get the running back holes to hit. We didn't give the quarterback time to throw the ball. We didn't get it done. We didn't show up."

Reach Stephen Tsai at stsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.