Starve the defense, feed the offense.

That was the remedy for the University of Hawai'i football team in a 44-9 rout of Eastern Illinois last night before 22,480 at Aloha Stadium.

The treatment took 2 hours, 54 minutes.

"We wanted to finish them off early," said UH running back Nate Ilaoa, whose team rebounded from last week's loss to Boise State to improve to 2-2.

Eastern Illinois, a Division I-AA team limited to 63 scholarships —22 fewer than UH — fell to 2-3.

"We're happy everybody came out healthy, and nobody was hurt," said EIU running back Vincent Webb.

The only bruises were to the Panthers' feelings.

The Panthers managed 291 yards against the Warriors' self-described "hungry" defense, with 57 yards accumulated on pass receptions.

In the meantime, Colt Brennan fueled the Warriors' offense, completing 30 of 41 passes for 409 yards and five touchdowns. He left after the Warriors' second series in the second half, which concluded with Ilaoa's 1-yard run to make it 41-9.

Brennan was dealing with a shuffled lineup. Ryan Grice-Mullins, the usual starting right slotback, was wearing a medical boot because of a badly sprained left ankle. Ross Dickerson, who started the first three games at right wideout, opened at right slotback. Ian Sample, a sixth-year senior, made his first start of the season at right wideout.

"Our receivers are so good, you can move them in and out and around, and it won't make a difference," Brennan said.

Indeed. On the game's opening drive, Sample sprinted past cornerback Terrance Sanders on a post pattern for a 29-yard scoring play.

On the Warriors' next drive, Dickerson sneaked into the right corner of the end zone to secure Brennan's 16-yard pass.

"It was a perfectly placed pass," Dickerson said. "Colt went through all of his progressions, and saw me in the corner. He put it right there."

Dickerson had played two years at slotback before moving to wideout in the spring of 2004. While the offense has an equal number of opportunities for the four receivers, Brennan admitted, "When you're an outside receiver, you're really limited in what you can do. In our offense, the focal point is on the two inside guys. When Ross was told he would move inside, you could tell he was excited. He knew he would get more opportunities."

Dickerson dropped his first pass, much to Brennan's surprise — and amusement.

"Ross never makes mistakes, so it was funny to see," Brennan said. "But he came back and made some big plays."

Dickerson finished with five catches for 67 yards; he was trumped by three other starting receivers. Sample caught six passes for 122 yards, left wideout Jason Rivers was six for 106, and left slotback Davone Bess, playing on a sprained ankle, was seven for 58.

"We wanted to go out there and make plays and have fun," Bess said. "We clicked, and we ended up having fun."

The Panthers, who were without injured All-America linebacker Clint Sellers, had no permanent answers for the Warriors' four-wide offense. When they crammed the tackle box to deny the Warriors' pet play, the shovel pass, Brennan would throw to the wideouts running post patterns. When the Panthers dropped seven defenders into pass coverage, Brennan would throw inside screens to the wideouts, swing passes to the slotbacks, or shovel passes and slips screens to Ilaoa.

"The defense was bouncing around, making it hard to read," Brennan said. "We fell back on what we know and what we're taught. I would throw the ball, and somebody would be right there to catch it. I don't think we played the best we can play. But we made the plays when we needed to make the plays. Luckily, the ball was in our court. The ball bounced our way. Did I leave out any other basketball analogies?"

The run-and-gun style gave the Warriors leads of 14-0, 21-9 and, at the intermission, 34-9.

The defense did the rest.

"We were so hungry," defensive end Ikaika Alama-Francis said. "It was depressing after we lost to Boise State. We couldn't wait to take it out on somebody. Eastern Illinois is a good team, but they were next on the schedule. We wanted to jump on them early. We wanted to set a tone and get them out of there as fast as we could."

The Panthers rushed for 234 yards, including Webb's 117. But 69 of those yards came when Webb broke free off a trap play.

Other than that, the Panthers were largely ineffective in the first half, when the outcome was still in suspense, and they faced too many obvious passing situations.

"We knew when it was a passing down, they tried to go long," UH safety Leonard Peters said.

But the Panthers were without wideout Ryan Voss, who was held out because of a shoulder injury, and 6-foot-6, 220-pound wideout Micah Rucker could not get unhinged from the Warriors' grasping cornerbacks.

Rucker, who entered averaging a touchdown every third catch, finished with two catches for 17 yards. Neither reception was a touchdown.

C.J. Hawthorne, who is 5 feet 11 and 166 pounds, and Kenny Patton, who is 6 feet and 185 pounds, took turns defending Rucker.

"Big guys don't like to be pushed, so we made sure we were really aggressive," Patton said. "Coach (Jerry) Glanville set up schemes where we had hands on (Rucker) the whole game. He couldn't run down the field free."

Rich Miano, who coaches the defensive backs, said: "We thought he would be the best receiver we'd face in terms of his physical ability. We wanted to jam him. We wanted to affect him. We wanted to double him. A lot of the game we didn't double him, and when we didn't, the corners really went up for the ball and made some plays.

"A lot of big receivers don't let the corner get off the ground," Miano added. "They lean on the corner. Our guys did a good job of timing it up and getting the ball at the highest point. That's what we teach, that's what they practice, and that's what they did."

Hawthorne said the best pass defense is a good pass rush.

"Our front seven did all the work," Hawthorne said.

Nose tackle Michael Lafaele held the point, and defensive ends Melila Purcell III and Alama-Francis sealed the perimeters. The Warriors then sent blitzers from all points.

The Panthers combined for 8-of-21 passing for 57 yards. Starter Mike Donato was 2 of 8 for 15 yards.

"The quarterback was running for his life," inside linebacker Adam Leonard said. "It's hard for a quarterback to put the pass on the money when he's running around."

Purcell said: "He looked like he was scared. I would be a little scared if I saw Ikaika coming off the edge."

The Warriors ended up with a season-high three interceptions.

"We wanted to force turnovers, and let our offense do its thing," Peters said. "That's what happened. It was a nice night."

Reach Stephen Tsai at stsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.