SEATTLE -- Steve Sarkisian started his week by calling out nearly everyone associated with the University of Washington football team, including himself.

The coach questioned the Huskies' attitude and enthusiasm. He chastised his players -- and himself -- for being tentative.

Above all else, he demanded change.

On Saturday, he got everything he wanted in the Huskies' 40-32 win over Hawaii at sun-drenched Husky Stadium.

"We didn't play our best last week, but that was all on us," receiver James Johnson said. "We didn't have enough energy and enthusiasm. Coach Sark really cracked the whip this week."

The players' intensity was evident from pregame warm-ups. The aggressiveness was there on the first play call.

"They responded," Sarkisian said. "I thought they brought everything we asked them to bring, and that's a good team."

And yet for all that was asked for by Sarkisian and brought by his team, the win was neither decisive, nor easy.

But should it have been?

The Huskies got a career day from sophomore quarterback Keith Price, who was 35-for-50 passing for 315 yards and four touchdown passes.

They jumped to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter, forced Hawaii into two costly turnovers, blocked two extra points, one of which Desmond Trufant returned 87 yards for two points.

Yet, the Huskies still needed a botched Hawaii onside kick -- that traveled just shy of the necessary 10 yards -- to secure the win.

Everything that went right for the Huskies should have made it an easy win, but it wasn't. That's what happens when you give up 333 passing yards, throw an interception that's returned 99 yards for a touchdown, allow the opposing team to covert 11-of-14 third-down plays and kick a punt so badly it hit a Hawaii player just 3 yards away.

Maybe the Huskies are destined to play games that will only add a little more gray to their coach's black hair.

"I'm getting old fast," Sarkisian said. "It's tough, but I kind of like it. I kind of love it."

Is he masochist?

"It's what it's about," he said. "It's the battle of the game. It's not about playing a quarter or a half or three quarters; it's four quarters of football."

If it were only a quarter or a half, the Huskies would have won quite comfortably.

It started by Sarkisian listening to his own pleas for aggressiveness from his players by getting aggressive as a play caller after seeing his team complete only one pass longer than 10 yards last week. Sarkisian adjusted the first scripted 15 plays of the game, and the first two were anything but vanilla.

Price went into a five-step drop on the first play and fired a pass to an open Austin Seferian-Jenkins for a 30-yard gain.

On the next play, Price again took a deep drop, avoided two rushers and threw the ball again to a wide-open Seferian-Jenkins. The big tight end from Gig Harbor sprinted for the end zone, coming up 2 yards short.

"I was trying to get there, but it didn't work out," Seferian-Jenkins said. "I was so close. We got a touchdown anyway."

Chris Polk scored on the next play for a 7-0 lead.

"I was too cautious last week," Sarkisian said. "Sometimes maybe for the right reasons, sometimes maybe for the wrong reasons. But I said to myself, 'I'm not going to do that again.' "

For his players, it was comforting reminder, knowing that their coach wasn't going to hold anything back.

"We were going to come out guns firing," Seferian-Jenkins said. "He said he was going to be aggressive and it trickles down to us."

Sarkisian would get another chance to be aggressive because the defense got the ball back quickly. Cort Dennison erased a long reception from Royce Pollard by chasing him down and punching the ball free, allowing Greg Ducre to recover it on the Washington 5-yard line.

"It's what we are taught to do," Dennison said.

The Huskies marched down the field, ripping off four consecutive runs of 11 yards or more to start the drive. It ended with Price hitting Jermaine Kearse for a 10-yard touchdown.

Washington then forced the first of the two Hawaii punts.

With momentum in their favor, the Huskies went deep again on the first play of the series. Price hit Devin Aguilar on a post route for a 59-yard gain. It set up a 20-yard scoring pass from Price to Kearse. The Huskies were up 21-0 in the first quarter, having scored three touchdowns on their first three drives.

Price completed his first eight passes for 193 yards and two touchdowns.

"I can still play better," he said.

A week earlier, Price threw for 102 yards.

"Washington came out really strong," Hawaii coach Greg McMackin said. "We weren't expecting as much of that because (Price) had thrown it short and they did some shifting and motions we hadn't seen. We didn't do as well of a job adjusting to that."

But with veteran quarterback Bryant Moniz and the system the Warriors run, Hawaii wasn't going to roll over midway through the first quarter.

The senior quarterback got Hawaii's run-and-shoot offense moving, completing passes for 12, 13 and 18 yards to set up the Warriors' first score -- a 1-yard run by Sterling Jackson.

"There's a reason they won 10 games last year, and they'll probably win games this year," Sarkisian said. "The quarterback is a special player. The kid is talented."

Washington seemed poised to answer the score and push the lead back to 21 points, but Price made his one egregious mistake of the day, lofting a pass in the end zone that Hawaii safety Richard Torres intercepted and took off with the other way. He didn't stop until he reached the end zone 99 yards later for the longest interception return for a touchdown in Hawaii's history.

"I just didn't see the safety," Price said. "It was miscommunication between me and Kevin (Smith, receiver). I need to look off the safety."

Price redeemed himself with a 31-yard touchdown pass to Aguilar just before halftime to put Washington up 28-14.

Hawaii scored on the first possession of the third quarter, when Moniz plunged in from 1 yard out, but the extra point was blocked by Everette Thompson.

"I felt inside there was some spots opening up, so I took my shot and got to it," he said.

After an Erik Folk field goal for Washington, Hawaii got another short touchdown run from Jackson to cut the lead to 31-26. The Warriors went for two points, but Ducre broke up Moniz's pass in the end zone.

Washington padded its lead in the fourth quarter, when Price hit Seferian-Jenkins in the back of the end zone. Up 38-26, Kiel Rasp botched a rugby punt when UW couldn't run out the clock. Hawaii answered with another touchdown pass from Moniz, but again the point after was blocked by Thompson and Trufant picked it up returned it for the two-point conversion.

"Obviously, we need to get better at finishing the game," Sarkisian said.

Ryan Divish: 253-597-8483 ryan.divishthenewstribune.com