The San Diego State Aztecs must move quickly past a humbling 38-6 loss at Hawaii that cost them their six-game winning streak and sole possession of first place in the Mountain West. 

The Aztecs (7-2, 4-1) welcome co-MW leader Boise State (6-3, 4-1) on Saturday night at Snapdragon. The winner will have an inside track to hosting the MW championship game on Dec. 5.

“Not a great evening out on the islands,” coach Sean Lewis said Monday. “(I) didn’t do a good job preparing the guys well enough for that trip and (it) shows in the results. We’ve got to do a much better job of responding to the beauty of competition. We’ve been very fortunate with the way that we’ve gone about our work, that we’ve found ways to win in a lot of different ways the past six weeks. 

“A great job by coach (Timmy) Chang and his staff, and the work that they put in their passion to play exceeded ours on Saturday night, so now we have to take great joy in learning and growing from that, because the challenges don’t get any easier.”

Here are the highlights of Lewis and the players’ news conference:

“To come back home where we are undefeated, to have an unbelievable opportunity to chase towards a sellout again, for our community to be there and to support a great team that’s playing really well, we’re in a great spot. Still first in the conference. Can’t lose sight of that and all the great work that these guys have done, and (we’re) excited to lean back into the work. We’ll bring them in this evening to put that game to bed, turn the page, and start prep for a really good Boise team that’s coming in.”

“We want our community to show up and show out. We have a tremendous community that has great pride in the Aztecs. We have an unbelievable team that is playing really well in between those white lines. We’ve done a lot of different things to make it accessible and affordable for people to come. I applaud the administration for doing that. I applaud the support of the season ticket holders who have been with us since day one. Now there’s an opportunity for other people to join us and to create an unbelievable competitive environment for us against a team that we [need] every single competitive edge.” 

“We didn’t do a good job of containing the quarterback. [We] allowed him to get out in space, and then we weren’t able to plaster with the wide receivers that created extended plays. Again, things that we can control, things that we need to do a good job with.” 

“We weren’t being ourselves. We weren’t playing to our standard, and we had a couple self-inflicted wounds that ended up costing us and turned into a big momentum shift for Hawaii. We can’t have those if we want to be the team that we want to be. We’ve got to get better from that, and we need players to step up when their numbers are called on.”

“It’s going to be huge for the D-line this week. We know what kind of challenge Boise represents and brings us. They have three great backs that can all take it the distance. We [have] to hone into our run fundamentals and know what team we are. We’re great against the run, and we can’t let up on that standard.” 

“We’re going to get better this week to show the fans our standard and what we really are. All the fan support and everyone’s coming out to this game, it really means a lot. Really gives energy to the whole team, and it makes a difference in the game. We’re ready to compete in this game. They’re a really talented team, and we’re training.” 

“That was a hard week for us coming back. We definitely were looking into our team and seeing what went wrong. We have to focus on ourselves, our details, our standards. That overall is going to help us and help us prepare for this game this week.”