WEST POINT, N.Y. >> For two teams that took more than 100 years to get around to their first meeting on a football field, and then have to cross five time zones to get there, the University of Hawaii and the Army will be seeing a lot of each other over the next few years.

Their nonconference meeting today along the Hudson River at historic West Point kicks off, so to speak, a series of four games in seven seasons, with the possibility of more on the way.

It is a curious collision of disparate entities in terms of offensive style (triple option vs. run-and-shoot) and distance.

The Rainbow Warriors’ appearance in the 6 a.m. game, which will be shown nationally on the CBS Sports Network, will be returned by Army next year at Aloha Stadium. Then, UH will be back in 2022, with the Black Knights returning the favor in 2024.

That is more meetings in the seven-year span than UH is scheduled to have with any other nonconference opponent — and as many as the Rainbow Warriors will have against some Mountain West Conference brethren, Air Force and New Mexico, for example, over the same period.

“I guess we’ll know each other pretty well by then,” UH athletic director David Matlin said.

Matlin’s counterpart, Army athletic director Boo Corrigan, said he hopes to have conversations this weekend potentially leading to some additional games.

Which is pretty remarkable since the distance between the two campuses — 9,962 miles round trip — is the second-longest trip teams playing in the 130-member NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision can make. Only the 10,012 round-trip miles between UH and UMass is longer.

UH and Army first played each other in 2003 and, given what it meant, it was understandable if the Black Knights weren’t crazy about resuming play for a while. That season, because of the NCAA exemption that allows teams playing Hawaii an extra game beyond the usual ceiling, Army played 13 games and lost them all for the worst single-season record in NCAA history.

The 59-28 defeat to UH was the penultimate game of the ignominious season.

But they resumed play in 2010 at West Point and 2013 at Aloha Stadium, with UH winning both, much closer, contests, 31-28 and 49-42.

UH associate athletic director Carl Clapp, who oversaw the booking of the games, said, “Playing Army just makes a lot of sense for us with the military presence in Hawaii.”

Against military teams — Air Force, Army and Navy — UH is averaging about 3,000 more fans per game than it otherwise gets in those seasons and usually ends up on some form of national TV. Army and Navy have TV rights deals with the CBS Sports Network.

That has allowed UH and Army to pay the visitors $400,000 guarantees for the 2018 and ’19 games to underwrite the travel.

Army has also come to see the benefits of the series. “It may be the single exposure (Army troops) have when they are stationed there,” Corrigan said. “I particularly like the idea of us playing out there around Thanksgiving (because of) not as much missed class time, which is something that is important,” Corrigan said.

Unlike the Naval Academy, which undertook conference membership in the American Athletic Association in 2009 and therefore has limited scheduling openings and is not currently on future UH schedules, Army is back to being an independent after a stay in Conference USA, with a full schedule to fill.

UH and the 13th game and so-called “zero week” options available under the NCAA’s Hawaii Exemption give Army some additional scheduling flexibility.

Two teams that took a while to get together and have a long haul just to meet up seem intent on making it work for them.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.