With a little less than a month to go before the season opener, the University of Hawaii athletic department is hoping that lagging football season-ticket sales will catch up to last year’s level.

Through Wednesday, UH said it has sold 19,902 season tickets, 1,088 short of last year’s total.

"We’re expecting to get back to right about where we were (in 2010)," athletic director Jim Donovan said. UH opens its season Sept. 3 against Colorado at Aloha Stadium.

UH was 10-4 in 2010, winning a share of the Western Athletic Conference championship. Winning finishes usually have produced an upswing in season-ticket sales the following year for the Warriors. The last two seasons that UH reached double figures in victories, 2006 and ’07, season-ticket sales climbed by more than 4,700 the following season.

But as of Wednesday, UH said it had 18,761 renewals and 1,141 new orders.

UH said it has been selling about 50 season tickets per day and, "some renewals are still trickling in," Donovan said.

"What we’re hearing from people, basically, is that they still plan to buy season tickets but they just don’t have the money right now," Donovan said. "We’re also hearing that with some people facing salary cuts and a rise in expenses for things like gas and health care something has to give and that is season tickets."

Football ticket sales are the biggest source of income for the UH athletic department, accounting for about 16 percent of the revenue in a $29 million annual budget.